Crimson Peak [Movie Review]
Five out of five moths
Would recommend if: you like good movies. Okay, fine, I’ll give you a serious answer (I just really like this one, okay?). I would recommend this if you get a thrill out of ghosts and chases without cars, if you think “strong female character” doesn’t mean “female who sleeps with whomever she wants”, and if you appreciate talent.
Plot: I’ll try to do it justice without giving too much away. Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister Lucille Sharpe come to America in search of finances. Edith Cushing, a young woman trying to make it as a writer but struggling with common conceptions and ideas of the female writer, meets Thomas when he mistakes her for a secretary in her father’s bank. He succeeds in dragging her out of her house to accompany him to a ball (and dragging a book worm out of her den is no easy task, this should give you an idea of the extent of his charms). I’ll say no more on this, but leave you to watch it yourself.
The story is one of love and family, past and present, strong wills and strong hearts (not necessarily in the people you’d expect at first); all of them clash and the result is genius. Though it’s possible that you’ll figure out some of the secrets before they are revealed, but I doubt you’ll be left entirely without a few surprises.
What makes this one stand out: Is it’s compelling characters first and foremost. The strong, yet not archetype-like contrasts swallows you up and leaves you hanging on every word, glance, and frame. That’s not to mention the amazing settings – but since a picture is worth a thousand words I’ll leave this one for you to see on your own (you’re going to google it now, aren’t you?).
Personal comment: I was uncertain when I first heard about this one, and though I hate to say anything negative about anyone (excluding myself), I do think the promotional interviews left a bit to be wanted. It seemed that there were too points every interviewer wanted to know about: Tom Hiddleston’s naked butt, and ‘strong female characters’. If you ask me, any movie (possibly with the exception of porn) where the most important thing to mention is an actor showing skin… Well, let’s just say it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the plot, the sets, the direction, or even the acting for that matter. As for the second part, this might be my mind being completely messed up, but whenever I hear some use the words ‘strong female character’ my first thought it ‘okay, so a female who’ll sleep with whomever she wants’ (no idea where I get that from…)
The only reason I considered this was because of the way director Guillermo Del Torro spoke about the contrasts between these two women. I dug the quote up for you so you can see it yourself.
“She (Lucille) makes a point to Edith that if you’re pretty, you’re delicate. And I think that’s a wrong information. That’s why we used the motives of the moths and the butterflies. Lucille thinks she’s a moth, and she’s all powerful and you know dark, and that Edith, because by virtue of being of a certain disposition, or American, or young and pretty, she must be a little butterfly that she is gonna be able to pin to her wall. And the whole point for me was to show that butterflies can be brutal.”
For me, this was what stuck. Re-watching this now I recognize a lot more interesting points being brought up by the actors (and a lot of those compliments to Guillermo and the other creative minds behind it all), so just in case I still haven’t convinced you, here are a few more quotes.
“There was something about Lucielle that I just found so heartbreaking, and devastating, and I just wanted to explore it. It was a mine field of where you could go, psychologically, and how deep you could go into a character, which for an actor is what you want to do.”
– Jessica Chastain (Lucille)
“I think what Jessica reads as Thomas’s selfishness is actually a sort of struggle for freedom and free will, and the film dramatizes a tension between the past and the future.”
– Tom Hiddleston (Thomas)
“I wanted to make a movie that was beautiful, and sort of really creepy and dark at the same time.”
– Guillermo Del Torro (Director)
“I haven’t seen these costumes in a long time, they’re very painful to wear. My shoulders go up as soon as I see them. But what’s incredible about the way Guillermo and the team designed this is that Thomas and Lucille are of the house, and so much so that the colors kind of blend into each other; and there’s even a hallway with the spikes around that look like teeth, and those are on my dress. So there’s all these subtle details, and the first time I went to the house when they are building it I saw it in many stages, it actually informed the character so much, I mean she is really physically part of her past, you know, it’s painful for her to leave.”
– Jessica Chastain (Lucille)
See the full interview here
Let me know what you thought of this movie in the comments, or if you have any suggestions for me to watch.
Details
Title: Crimson Peak
Director: Guillermo Del Torro
Year: 2015
Genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a series: No