Stars outshine story in meek 'Albert Nobbs'
As you probably know by now, Glenn Close and Janet McTeer have both earned Oscar nominations for their nuanced performances in Rodrigo Garcia's woefully underpowered period drama "Albert Nobbs," a modest and inconclusive examination of gender disparity in 19th-century Ireland.
Like "The Iron Lady" with (another Oscar nominee) Meryl Streep, "Albert Nobbs" traps wonderfully rendered female characters in an artsy prestige drama unable to match the raw power of its lead performers.
When we first see Close as Albert Nobbs, she wears close-cropped red wavy hair under an impeccably sharp bowler. Her eyebrows are almost invisible, placed above dull, domesticated eyes and permanently drawn razor-thin lips.
She looks, at first glance, like a strange molecular merger of Conan O'Brien and Red Buttons.
Quickly, Nobbs grows on us until we accept him/her just as the staff did long ago at their hoity-toity upper-echelon hotel where Nobbs works as a domestic under a whim-driven, money-conscious owner (Pauline Collins).
Nobbs has done this ever since she was a teenager when she discovered she could nab better-paying jobs by pretending to be male.
Now, approaching middle age, the bland and fastidious Nobbs has carefully squirreled away her meager earnings hidden in the floor boards of her tiny apartment.
Nobbs has a dream to buy an abandoned shop and convert it into her/his own tobacco store, thereby freeing her to be the woman she has long-ago forgotten and at last freeing her from the awful corset that keeps her feminine secret under wraps.
The hotel's relative domestic doldrums go into a tizzy for Nobbs upon the arrival of a swaggering, burley house painter named Hubert Page (McTeer, radiating bombastic macho confidence).
Hubert becomes aware of Nobbs' true sexual identity, but mercifully and quickly reveals that he is also a she masquerading as a man for the same economic incentives that have driven Nobbs.
Hubert opens Nobbs' eyes to a whole new world by revealing he has "married" his life partner (Amanda Seyfried) and now lives a happy life with her in town.
Ever naive, poor Nobbs wonders if Hubert told his new bride about his real sexual identity before or after their wedding.
A cute and sexually precocious hotel chambermaid named Helen Dawes ("Jane Eyre" star Mia Wasikowska) suddenly becomes a possibility for the lonely Nobbs, who fumbles for the words to ask her out for a walk.
Helen is quite busy with the hotel's new handyman Joe (Aaron Johnson), an ambitious lad just conniving enough to spot an opportunity for Helen to feign interest in the emotionally stifled domestic for their monetary gain.
To its credit, "Albert Nobbs" (co-written by Close, based on an Irish novella by George Moore) sidesteps not only the turn of events we might expect, but any reference to "Silas Marner" and his tragically stashed life savings.
This turns out to be less than a blessing for the movie, which seldom digs below the surface of the plot and utterly lacks any compelling sense of conflict or danger.
This movie is clearly a source of great passion and pride for Close, a five-time Oscar nominee who first played Nobbs to much acclaim during a 1982 off-Broadway production.
Here, Close deserves kudos for imbuing her domestic with a sense of quiet, resigned sadness for her repressed lifestyle.
But she and McTeer are stuck in a dramatic tragedy a little short on the dramatic parts.
“Albert Nobbs”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, Brendan Gleeson
Directed by: Rodrigo Garcia
Other: A Roadside Attractions release. Rated R for language, nudity and sexual situations. 118 minutes