Anyway, Eleanor catches on what the couple are up to, but decides she doesn't mind. She's falling for Buck, and--he is falling for her. Which results in a constantly shifting triangle. And Cynthia can't complain much, as the scheme was her idea. Eleanor subtly lets them know she's on to them but that she's going along with it. Cynthia begins to feel the odd man out. There's also a touching love scene between Eleanor & Buck. I haven't mentioned that her cancer is breast cancer. After overcoming her fear that Buck will be repulsed, and being reassured by him, she removes her top and we see (obviously a body double) her mastectomy scars. Had to be risky, but it's a lovely scene.
The one concession to movie reality is Eleanor never stops looking beautiful, which undoubtedly is less than believable of someone dying of cancer. But her movements, body language, & sad self-awareness convincingly convey her illness. What amazes throughout is the down to earth quality of the dialogue, which avoids flippancy or melodrama. When Eleanor first tells Cynthia of her condition, Joely strikes the right balance of hesitation & the matter-of-factness of someone who has accepted her situation.
The movie has one of the most beautiful & wrenching death scenes I have ever seen. Buck has been working as a gardener on the estate (yeah, shades of Lady Chatterley, a role Richardson has played), and one morning carries Eleanor (too weak to walk at this point) to the garden to see what they created. Eleanor, very weakened now, rests her head on Buck's thigh and speaks in a quavering voice of death & beauty & impermanence. I really can't do the scene justice in words; cinema is of course intrinsically visual, I'll just say the scene is a wonder of acting, direction, & emotion.
One other thing I wanted to comment on. Now comparisons are mostly pointless, and in the case of WINGS OF THE DOVE and UNDER HEAVEN, probably apples & oranges as well. But for me, UH added a bit of coherence to the story. In the excellent WOTD, I was never clear what was motivating Allison Elliot's dying heiress. Love, yes, but something else remained frustratingly opaque. I couldn't nail down how she felt about the machinations around her; sometimes being enigmatic is a copout. But in UH Joely's Eleanor is perfectly lucid about her reaction to the scheme. She conveys a mixture of hurt, pragmatism, & longing that you never question. In a key scene, a distraught Cynthia says (the deception at this point
is no longer secret yet has remained unspoken between the two women) "I found out my boyfriend is in love with someone else." Eleanor meets Cynthia's gaze and replies, "Do you think it's something that's likely to last for a long time?" Amazingly, she says this without hardness or bitterness, even with sympathy for Cynthia. How many actresses could pull that off? Not a large number, I daresay.
The director is Meg Richman. As far as I know, this is her first film. There are a couple examples of clunky dialogue, but otherwise this is a remarkably assured effort. Which apparently almost no one saw. You should. It's amazing the gems that slip through the cracks sometimes.
-N. Kirk Lucas
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