Mesmerized Movie Review 1984

This is a strangely haunting drama, well enhanced by the Maori choir that accompanies the opening and closing of the movie. I was riveted, watching it twice over right out of the box. Acting is excellent, with Jodie Foster in the unfamiliar role of a prim young Victorian lady speaking English as it is spoken by the English, exploring the world outside her orphanage tentatively but with firm resolution. Lithgow is convincing as a hard drinking, uncouth but successful businessman devoid of social and even sexual grace. The drama unfolds relentlessly, to keep us where we belong - on the edge of our chairs. The New Zealand accent isn't easy to imitate and only Lithgow does a passable job, but I doubt if that matters because immigration to that colony from Britain at the time would mean there was a wide mix of dialects. The murder would have been easily avoided had the idiotic lawyer whom the heroine consulted given her better advice, and that's a condemnation of Victorian attitudes towards marriage and probably justifies the movie's billing as a member of the "domestic abuse" genre. However it goes much further, for the manner in which Victoria escaped her trap gave Oliver a dreadfully cruel death, and the film is honest about its portrayal. The movie therefore left me surprised: I sympathetically identified with a woman who had with malice aforethought cruelly caused the violent death of her husband and benefactor - for no better reason than that his inadequacies left her unsatisfied in love. I'm glad she was acquitted, and hopefully lived happily ever after with George; for punishment never, ever solves anything but is the antithesis of true justice. The story left me nonetheless with a strong sense of moral ambiguity, which is no doubt just what the director intended.