Movie review: "Ethan Frome" (1993)
Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette,
Joan Allen
Director: John Madden
1 hr 39 mins
Based on the novel, Ethan Frome (1911), by Edith Wharton.
I watched the movie, then I
read the book, then I watched the movie again (and again), it's easier than
reading the book again, but I'm going to do that too.
For my taste, the book and the
movie are interchangeable. Knowing the ending doesn't reduce the dreadful
intensity of this story that gets ever more sad from beginning to end.
The love story breaks through the
arid shell of real life—oh, so briefly….Ethan (Neeson) wants more, Mattie (Arquette)
wants more, the viewer wants more….
Every other character in the story
seems to, well, not necessarily "want" less, but to be all too righteously satisfied with
less.
Except for a brief whirl of a dance scene, there are no smiles on the faces
of any of the other characters who live dried up lives, and disdain the spark of
love and life in Ethan and Mattie.
Doubtless, the town folk see a pitiless
moral lesson in the damaged life of Ethan Frome and the love he must keep stuffed
inside him.
I see a man and a woman who share
forbidden love, but don't know what to do about it, and grotesquely fail to snuff
it out.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2013
All rights reserved.
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