Lady Audley's Secret

Starring:Neve McIntosh, Juliette Caton, Melanie Clark Pullen, Kenneth Cranham, Steven Mackintosh, Jamie Bamber, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Bev Willis, David Glover, Paul Swinnerton, Joy Merriman, Angus Kennedy, Malcolm Terris, Veronica Clifford, Donald Gee, Howard Crossley, Patrick Baladi, Cate Fowler, Stacy Davies, Frank Jarvis
Director: Betsan Morris Evans
Studio: Bfs Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Description

Deep in her sleep behind closed doors of the Audley estate, Lady Audley's scandalous past haunts her dreams. Revelling in the luxury attained by marriage to Sir Michael Audley (Kenneth Cranham - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) an aristocrat thirty years her senior, the beautiful and cunning Lucy Graham (Neve McIntosh - Gormenghast) is also greatly admired by Sir Audley's dashing nephew, Robert (Steven Mackintosh - Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), who begins to nurse suspicions that Lucy is implicated in the bizarre disappearance of his good friend, George Talboys (Jamie Bamber - Horatio Hornblower). Powerfully tempted by Lucy's allures, Robert struggles to solve the mysterious puzzle of Lady Audley's involvement, exposing dark secrets, deception and murder along the way.

Customer Reviews:

Exploring the Dark Side of Victorian "Respectability" .......2006-10-07

Though this has been called a mystery (and it is, in part, that) its really much more than that. Through its many twists and turns this labyrinthine novel is really an expose of the countless hypocrisies and double-standards concealed beneath the polite veneer of Victorian society. Whats most exciting is that this novel is proof that not all of those alive during the time subscribed to the notion that Victorian England actually was the shining isle of virtue and respectability that many claimed it to be. "Morality" and "respectablity" were mandatory in the England of the 1860's and though very few people could actually live up to these high standards the rich could at least afford the semblance of respectability. Those with money could conveniently hide their own imperfections and sins behind thick castle doors or send proof of their sins off to the colonies in order to keep them out of sight and out of mind. The poor were not so lucky, for them the slightest mistake or even the slightest hint of scandal was instantly made public and scandal spelled instant ruin. Tucked comfortably away behind ivy covered walls the rich lived however they wanted to. But the poor lived under the watchful eye of the public and the wealthy landowners that were exploiting them and ready to discipline them if they stepped out of line; thus the poor lived in fear of both material blight and in fear of censor from their supposed "betters".

Braddon focuses her keen attentions on a young and beautiful 22 year old who was born in a mining town. Realizing that the only way that she can escape living in the same squalid conditions as her parents "Helen" decides to improve her prospects in the only way that is available to a woman in the 1860's: she marries for money. But her first marriage to George Talsby doesn't turn out as planned (because of the marriage George is cut off from his families wealth) and though the union produces a child she knows she cannot love a man who cannot "make her comfortable" and so she abandons him and then tries the only other way she can think of to escape from poverty: she changes her name and gets a job working on a wealthy estate. This turns out rather well for "Helen" (now calling herself "Lucy" and posing as a single governess) because the wealthy Lord Audely for whom she is working, though a good thirty years her senior, just happens to be in the market for a young bride and cannot help but notice the striking beauty working in his house. When he proposes she accepts and becomes Lady Audley and is forever freed from the prospect of having to earn a living, or so she thinks.

But, alas, her good fortune does not last as her estranged husband George Talsby (who is still trying to find her) just happens to be friends with Lord Audley's nephew, Robert, and when the two of them return from a stint in Australia and arrive at the Audley estate Lady Audley must do everything in her power to avoid allowing this particular "secret" from her past (and, yes, there is actually more than one) to be revealed. To avoid her estranged husband she simply faints every time she hears him approaching and rushes off to her room. Interestingly Lord Audley never asks Lady Audley about her past even when she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming in horror from the memory of it and from the fear of being found out. To Lord Audley Lady Audley is merely a showpiece; she is no more alive to him than a painting. And Lucy's relationship to the portrait that Lord Audley commisions is an especially interesting and telling one. Once Robert and George get a look at this portrait they are both filled with a need to possess her. The nephew is filled with lust and the estranged first husband, realizing for the first time that his friends stepmother is actually his runaway wife, wants her back (although he keeps her true identity a secret). And all of this happens while lightning crashes around the house and guadily lights up the room. Braddon is not above sensationalistic moments, and because of this you are never for one moment bored for every time you want something to happen it does, but despite a series of sensationalistic moments she is sincerely interested in the plight of women in Victorian society. Victorian England offered very little in the way of career opportunites for women and the Victorians seemed to value women's reputations more than they valued women as actual living & breathing individuals with their own complex identities. But Braddon, thankfully, is not afraid to tell it like it is and with "Lucy" we get a devastating portrait of a woman's fate in such a male dominated society. Lord Audley's niece, Alicia, comfortably inhabits Victorian England simply because she has no knowledge of the world outside the estate that she grew up on and so she actually does appear to be the prim Victorian ideal; Lucy, on the other hand, has seen the world and is intimately familar with its realites and she has a complex identity and complex views on just what those realities are. Nonetheless due to strict social surveillance of women and their behavior she has learned how dangerous this society can be to a woman with strong views and she has learned to keep her true views and her true self hidden away. Lucy is forced to be an excellent actress although on occasion the true Lucy does burst through the social facade and on these occasions the real Lucy really lets her oppressors have a piece of her mind. This is admittedly "sensationalistic" fiction and Braddon's heroine is a sensationalistic character but it is also obvious that Braddon is genuinely interested in investigating a society whose social codes require women to live secret or double lives.

Once they get a glimpse of the real Lucy the men all view her as "cold, rational and remorseless" but it is clear that its the injustices of this lop-sided male dominated society that force her to become the self-preserving and calculating survivalist that she becomes. Upon hearing her justification for doing each thing that she's done a psychiatrist deems her "mad"; the Victorians with their oversimplied views on women are not equipped to understand a creature like Lady Audley.

As Lucy's past, and Victorian society's moral authorities (including the scorned and smitten nephew turned into a wanna-be Sherlock Holmes who busies himself gathering clues with which to convict her), begin to catch up with her we see her in more and more cramped spaces until she is finally held in her room like a prisoner by her husband and the smitten nephew. Lord Audley fears for the damage that would be done to his reputation were his wife's many "secrets" to be revealed, but the nephew is more interested in exacting revenge and punishment on Lady Audley for refusing his own amorous advances. Thus Lucy becomes a symbol for what happens to women in a repressive society that cannot see or value women as individuals but can see them only as embodiments of the virtue that they themselves aspire to or of the vices that they cannot escape.

So although this is a sensationalistic film with a lurid twist or a salacious turn every 3-5 minutes and with an ending as unexpected as it is unfaithful to the original novel on which it is based; both film and novel (each in their own way) effectively turn that prying Victorian lens back on Victorian society itself and implicate the entire society in creating Lady Audley. Once she is found out Lady Audley strikes out not at Victorian society nor at the men who made her what she is but at her own portrait. The implications of lashing out against her own portrait are threefold: 1)her dream of wealth has been ruined, 2) the portrait represents the fiction that she was forced to play in order to survive in Victorian society, and 3) the realization that she is not the person in the portrait makes her face what she really might be (mad). This last fear is a fear instilled in her from childhood when her father told her that her supposedly dead mother was actually mad and that this madness was hereditary. This is the real "secret" she has concealed from the world. And the real innovation of the book is that it offers the Victorian definition of madness. For the Victorian "madness" becomes a term used against those that fail to follow conventions. Thus among everything else that Lady Audley must contend with (unjust social conditions, extremely narrow definitons/expectations of Victorian women, mens arbitrary exercise of power over women) she must also deal with a primitive pre-Freudian Victorian psychology which chooses to see unconventionality, and especially unconventionality in women, as a disease of the mind.

This is certainly a fascinating side of the Victorians that we would not get were we to confine ourselves to reading only the more conventional literature of the day.

Lady Audley, not Cousin Rachel.......2006-05-10

This program was SUPPOSED to be based on Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, not Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel, but it seems to resemble du Maurier's work. A man goes after a woman not so much because she is a murderer, but because she doesn't return his love. Braddon's book wasn't like that! Robert is a far more sympathetic character in the book, really struggling to make the right decision, and Alicia does not like Lucy at all. I understand that the person who developed this for TV sympathized with Lucy's character more than Braddon did, but this person changed the story too much. And the book's ending was much happier. A real disappointment!

Not entertaining, very frustrating.......2006-03-08

I find that a key element in enjoying a movie or book is a main character that is likeable or at least sympathetic. Lady Audley is neither. She's a liar, a cheat, a selfish horrible person. I felt sorry for everyone that came into contact with her.

The movie is almost unwatchable if not for the incredible tension built by strong performances by the cast. It's not their fault the script is dreck. The book is much better.

"One thing I've learned in my new life, it's simply a matter of money.".......2005-11-28

If you are expecting BBC quality drama here, you are about to be disappointed. "Lady Audley's Secret" receives soap opera treatment in this 2000 television version. Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novel is a splendid example of Victorian 'sensation fiction' and as such it certainly lends itself to melodrama, smelling salts, and swooning heroines. Unfortunately, this production goes through the motions, but an unpolished production, and a clumsy script create a mediocre result.

When the film begins, governess Lucy Grey (Neve McIntosh) agrees to marry her wealthy employer Sir Michael Audley (Kenneth Cranham). His daughter Alicia (Juliette Caton) is delighted. Meanwhile cousin Robert Audley (Steven Mackintosh) arrives back from Australia with his friend and fellow traveler, George Talboys (Jamie Bamber). George's wife and young child have mysteriously disappeared, and he searches for them while Robert goes to the Audley mansion. Robert is immediately smitten by his uncle's youthful beautiful new bride. Robert returns to the house dragging along his friend, George along with him ....

The unsubtly of the script manages to take all of the mystery out of the plot, making it clear exactly what skullduggery is afoot from almost the first scene. The mystery here--what happened to George's wife--is so clumsily portrayed that it should be obvious (even to all the characters). What remains--once the suspense is slaughtered--is just an exercise in soap opera shenanigans with no substance. Perhaps this wouldn't be such a crime, but the script is choppy and leaps all over the place. The audience should be kept on the edge of their seats with breathless anticipation, but instead the film runs through the scenes with an almost mechanical desire to get to the conclusion. With this sort of material, it's impossible to do justice to the subject in 108 minutes (the time frame alone for the complexities of this story should set off alarms). Steven Mackintosh manages a valiant performance, but it's simply not enough to salvage the film--displacedhuman

Purist.......2005-09-01

Having read the novel, I was extremely disappointed in the film. The only claim that the film legitimately has of being based on the novel is that some of the characters have the same names and it is in roughly the same geographic location. Novel aside, the film does little to explain the background information that is neccesary to understanding the plot, it simply starts off in media res and makes no attempt explain anything. Without having read the book, I would have been hopelessly lost. The film also does not define the relationships between the characters. They seem to be wandering aimlessly around the countryside bumping into each other. Badly done, scriptwriters, badly done.

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