Are Glenn Close and her creative cohorts having a lend?
One has to wonder when the two leading characters in ALBERT NOBBS (M), is a Mister Nobbs and a Miss Dawes? Knobs and doors, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. To continue with schoolboy snigger, Mr. Nobbs sports a set of knockers as does another cove, a Mr. Page, (Janet McTeer) no page boy this, mammy.
This tale of cross dressing domestics is as much about the upstairs downstairs of certain individuals as it is the social strata of servants in uncivil Victorian era Dublin.
As a master class of acting by Glenn Close it is a success, a triumphal chameleon turn as the transvestite Albert Nobbs, a woman so abused as to sublimate her sexuality and self into servitude, existing as a male solely to survive.
Except for her diminutive stature, all traces of femininity have evaporated, so successful the sublimation of her sex, to the point she fantasises of taking a wife, with no apparent lesbian leaning.
This is tragic transvestism as opposed to the more common cinematic treatment of cross dressing, comedy, and without the need to fall into farce or camp, the final product probably could have done with a little bit of comic leavening.
What we are presented with is a dour Dublin drama that is a bit of a drudge. One of the key plot points, Nobbs’ secret’s discovery is, pardon the pun, a drag, with Janet McTeer’s trannie turn tragically telegraphed by a k.d.lang look and languor.
When Albert gets a bee in her bonnet over a flea in her frillies – actually a parasite in her corset- it’s literally a booby trap. Keeping abreast of anatomical anomaly, it’s tits at ten paces as Page beats her breast, bares her chest, shares the jest, and puts mutual trust to the test.
© Richard Cotter
23rd December, 2011