In Enchanted April four women laze about in a drafty castle talking and learning about the most personal and romantic aspects of each others' lives. Starting first as a lesson about female empowerment in the face of overbearing masculinity, Enchanted April sacrifices that message for one of "bliss by romance" in the second half. Each of the women has a somewhat unique situation at home, but the bottom line for each of them is a pervading sense of loneliness. Enchanted April can't seem to decide on the message it really wants to send and instead surrenders to a cheap candy-coated "everybody falls in love" ending. The movie started off as something groundbreaking but just couldn't commit - though the source material deserves more credit for that failure.
Lottie (Josie Lawrence) has submitted to the wants and desires of her husband Mellersh (Alfred Molina) as society at the time says a woman should. Her attempts at defining herself outside of her relationship with Mellersh have met with failure time and time again - until she arranges to accompany Rose (Miranda Richardson) to Italy for the month of April. Rose's relationship with her husband Frederick (Jim Broadbent) border on platonic as the two tend to search for romance outside of their marital constraints. Most recently, Frederick has been pursuing Caroline (Polly Walker) a woman renowned for her beauty in the most elite of social circles; pushing men away left and right, Caroline wants an opportunity to escape the pressures of a society courting her solely for her good looks. These three women, with the widowed Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright) all agree to spend April in a castle in the Italian countryside - none of them quite prepared for the friendships and revelations that will result for each of them. As the women grow in the individuality and self-awareness, the men of their lives begin to show up one at a time to meet the transformed women and undergo some changes themselves.
The entire story would be a brilliant allegory for female independence were the end result not so blatantly formulaic in its "and they all lived happily after" finale. Wait, we sat through really slow conversations and long pauses only to have the women wind up in the same place as the typical protagonist of a mindless romantic comedy? Enchanted April wants to be so much more than it actually ends up being. The characters have such brilliant set ups wasted in light of a decidedly non-progressive script. How unfortunate.
Despite the story's shortcomings, the performances from the cast are top notch. Josie Lawrence and Joan Plowright deserve special recognition amongst the main four. Josie's opening performance, with a sort of wild-eyed craze, betrays her repressed desperation to get out from under the thumb of her old-fashioned husband. Josie Lawrence gives her character life, but Joan Plowright steals the show. As the haughty widow with expectations of how things ought to be, her difficulties dealing with the less than formal trio living with her brings the character of Mrs. Fisher a life none of the other characters even come close to. On the testosterone-fueled side, Alfred Molina and Jim Broadbent have memorable turns as the two husbands. The entire cast is in top form, but again, they can only do so much to rescue a script which abandons its themes of empowerment to those of romantic conformity.
Yet another unfortunate problem for Enchanted April is the video transfer quality: it's downright miserable. With lots of dirt spots on the copy, the overall visual quality would have been miserable anyways. The grainy picture is almost obnoxious and at times makes me think the DVD transfer came off of a VHS copy recorded off of television. It's not pretty.
DVD Bonus Features
If you didn't think it was possible for a movie with an already dehydrated feel to get even drier - then try the audio commentary. Director Mike Newell and producer Ann Scott contribute to a truly dreary commentary - their anecdotes hold little tidbits of information, but they're so unenthused that the entire experience will bore any but the most devoted to tears.
"Enchanted April" is on sale May 5, 2009 and is rated PG. Drama, Romance. Directed by Mike Newell. Written by Elizabeth von Arnim (novel), Peter Barnes (screenplay). Starring Alfred Molina, Jim Broadbent, Josie Lawrence, Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Polly Walker.
