Sister act: Those scandalous Brontës
“Masterpiece” and the BBC could have made a whole miniseries on the Brontë sisters, but they’ve done the next best thing, which is to allow Sally Wainwright to write and direct a 90-minute film about the 19th century authors, which will air on KQED on Sunday, March 26. It is, of course, difficult to think of “Wuthering Heights” or “Jane Eyre” as especially scandalous, but they were in Victorian England, as was the novel by Charlotte’s (Finn Atkins) and Emily’s (Chloe Pirrie) sister, Anne (Charlie Murphy), “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” It wasn’t just the subject matter but that the authors were — gasp! — women.
The real scandal in the Brontë family was the women’s brother, Branwell (Adam Nagaitis), a ne’er-do-well, gambler, alcoholic and drug user who pushed the family’s patience to the limit until even the patriarch, the Rev. Patrick Brontë (Jonathan Pryce), came close to slamming the door in his face.
The script is only one of the stars of the production. Wainwright weaves samples of the women’s writing, including poetry, into the dialogue, and creates distinct characters in each of the three sisters, not to mention their father and brother. It may frustrate us that the women’s lives are refracted so much by two men in their family, but that only underscores the status of women in Victorian society and, in turn, why it was so brash for them to become novelists — even if they use male pen names at first.
The film is graced by lovely performances from the main cast in particular. The work by the actresses in the lead roles is so good, you can easily forget that they don’t look at all as though they could be related.