Film Reviews: The Lesson & The Miracle Club

Acting the Parts
The Lesson & The Miracle Club

By Marc Glassman

The Lesson

Alice Troughton, director

Alex MacKeith, script

Starring: Daryl McCormack (Liam Sommers), Richard E. Grant (J.M. Sinclair), Julie Delpy (Helene Sinclair), Stephen McMillan (Bertie Sinclair), Crispin Letts (Ellis)

Set in a country estate among the cultural elite, The Lesson is the kind of mystery that the British used to call the “cozy.” While foul play and fouler manners fueled the passion and intrigue in such tales, it was also required that great food and elegant flirtations provide entertaining diversions throughout. And although you were expected to enjoy the sophisticated style of the main characters, it was part of the fun that dreadful things would occur to some of them. You can’t have a cozy without a death or two; it’s as natural as breaking eggs to make an omelette. 

The Lesson disguises itself as a dark literary comedy but its roots as a cozy is revealed as the story unfolds. The characters, although excellently played by a fine cast, run to stereotypes. Daryl McCormack, a handsome African-American-Irish actor, performs the leading role, more or less, of Liam, an aspiring writer who takes on the job of tutoring the withdrawn unruly son Bertie (Stephen McMillan) of the glittering Sinclair family. Bertie’s mother, Helene (Julie Delpy) is a beautiful, apparently cold, French intellectual and art curator while the ruler of the household is the arrogant, volatile, acclaimed novelist J.M. Sinclair, who is brilliantly played by the eccentric actor Richard E. Grant. Bertie is wait-listed for Oxford, and it is Liam’s responsibility to get him ready for the orals that may get him into the university. 

We soon realize that there was another son, Felix, who has drowned tragically in the local river, a suicide. Now the family’s ambitions lie with Bertie and the new novel, Red Rose, which is intended to be J.M.’s comeback after a long hiatus. Most of the first two sections of the three-part film take place in the grand manner of cozy fiction, with superb family dinners accompanied by wine and music by Schubert, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff pointedly chosen by J.M. The class system, still so much a part of England is represented by Helene and J.M.’s frosty but absolutely correct treatment of Liam and the tutor’s quintessentially comic relationship with the butler Ellis, which is played out with a “Downton Abbey” distant politesse. 

The country estate is gorgeous, with beautiful gardens, a resplendent mansion and a fully equipped coach house for Liam or guests to stay in. It’s from his window that Liam spies J.M. working endlessly into the night, finishing his novel, drinking, and occasionally, having sex with his wife. While spending time on the endless grounds during the day, Bertie explains to Liam that rhododendrons, though beautiful, have toxic qualities and can cause harm to people. Known as “red roses,” the flower might appear harmless but can be poisonous. It’s soon after hearing about rhododendrons that Liam finds out that J.M.’s book is called Red Rose. 

As the quietly charismatic arriviste into the family drama, Liam is maddeningly pursued and repulsed by all of the Sinclairs, who want him to be on their side during inevitable conflicts and quarrels. Asked to read Red Rose, Liam offers his opinion to J.M. that the first two-thirds of the book is excellent, but the ending is less successful. This enrages J.M., who critiques Liam’s unpublished novel mercilessly. Bertie and Helene seem more and more angry at J.M, too. Then, something happens: Red Rose disappears due to a computer malfunction and the inexplicable loss of the only printed manuscript.

Ok—let’s stop the description now! Following the dictates of the cozy, many things happen in the last third of the script, some violent and all revelatory. The Lesson offers an impressive denouement though, quite frankly, there are plot twists that seem illogical to me. But then, I’m a fan of the cozy and its opposite, the hard-boiled private eye novel. For those who love Agatha Christie or elegant British dramas, The Lesson is a lovely summer’s divertissement. If not, well, it’s not a proper entertainment for everyone. 

The Miracle Club

Thaddeus O’Sullivan, director

Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager, Joshua D. Maurier, script

Starring: Laura Linney (Chrissie), Kathy Bates (Eileen Dunne), Maggie Smith (Lily Fox), Stephen Rea (Dunne), Agnes O’ Casey (Dolly), Mark O’Hallaran (Father Byrne), Mark McKenna

It’s 1967 in Dublin, a time when miracles would have come in handy. Life is tough: there’s not much money in the city and there’s been precious little social progress in Ireland since a hard-fought independence against the British had drained energy and passion out of the place more than 50 years previously. 

Certainly, the past looms large for The Miracle Club’s Chrissie, Eileen and Lily, three women whose lives are quintessentially Irish, though they have not been political at all. While their tragic tales are doled out to us, as a repast slowly to be relished, it’s clear that sex, religion and a repressive moral code have dictated the lives of the women—and, we assume, so many others.

In The Miracle Club, Eileen, Lily, Chrissie plus another, Dolly, seek meaning and, hopefully, a cure for the woes that have beset them. Lily and Eileen, neighbours forever, are mourning the loss of Chrissie’s mother, who has just passed away, when the film begins. Chrissie (Laura Linney) has returned to Dublin after 40 years in Boston, but her arrival isn’t greeted well by Lily (Maggie Smith) and Eileen (Kathy Bates). With her comes the past, a time of hope that was crushed by the death of Declan, Lily’s son, and Chrissie’s departure to America. In the present, another drama is taking place: Dolly (Agnes O’Casey), a lovely well-meaning neighbour, is dealing with her tragedy—a young son, Daniel, who can’t or won’t speak. 

Ireland is a country that is still Catholic, but this dramatic comedy takes place more than 50 years ago, when the number of true believers must have been much higher than now. It was a time when the local well-meaning priest could organize a huge trip for his parishioners to Lourdes, a site in France where, purportedly, the Virgin Mary had visited and could grant miracles. (The film was partially shot there.) With some reluctance and family strife, the women—Lily, Eileen, Chrissie and Dolly with Daniel—become part of the group and go to Lourdes with Father Byrne in the lead in search of miracles. While there, they come to revelations about themselves and learn how to accept each other, which, of course, is the miracle itself. 

What’s remarkable about The Miracle Club and makes it a film worth seeing, is its three major players: Kathy Bates, Maggie Smith, and Laura Linney. One should see the film for the remarkable confluence of these remarkable talents. Bates, an Oscar winner for Misery, is a born character actor, who has been convincing in role after role. Her Irish accent is more than acceptable, and you can easily believe in her playing a woman, who has spent her lifetime as mother, wife and church-goer. She’s funny and alive, in particular, in her scenes with the excellent Stephen Rea, playing her somewhat comic husband: there is an effervescence that is winning when they’re together.

Just as impressive is Maggie Smith, possibly the most accomplished thespian alive today. She can play comedy or tragedy or anything in-between, and we all know this. Here, Smith hasn’t had to do much—her character of Lily, a grief-stricken mother is no stretch—but one sees her generosity as a player with Bates and Linney. Her eyes are always alive, offering sympathy and encouraging others to speak about themselves. 

A digression: for lovers of the great Maggie Smith, it’s astonishing to remember her as a young beauty being courted by Rod Taylor’s playwright in Young Cassidy (based on Sean O’Casey’s life) back in 1965. Such is the length and depth of her career that she’s now playing old women in a Dublin she actually starred in more than 55 years ago.

The Miracle Club stars Laura Linney, who is wonderful in this film, as always. She brings humour and immense good will to every film she’s in. As Chrissie, she’s quietly angry in The Miracle Club: her life has gone all wrong because of the betrayal of the women played by Kathy Bates, who was supposed to be her best friend, and Maggie Smith, who was the mother of the boy she loved.  Yet she forgives them, and she makes you believe it. But there’s a moment when she looks at Bates and says, “I was banished,” and the line is delivered with the proper amount of astonishment and hurt that only a great actor can offer us. It’s like the scene in Mystic River when she convinces Sean Penn to go on being a “king” even when what he did was wrong. She reverses the moral drive of the film simply by her force-of-will. There is no one quite like Laura Linney.

Should you see The Miracle Club even if it doesn’t deliver a story that’s unexpected or new? Let me answer a question with a question. Shouldn’t you seize any opportunity to see three great actors together for the first—and let’s face it—only time? 

Note: The Miracle Club opens next Friday, July 14.