Insofar as Albert Nobbs, directed by Rodrigo García
(Nine
Lives), has found favor in the eyes of the Motion
Picture Academy it is on account of the performance of Glenn Close
in the title role, which earned her an Oscar nomination and which
rivals that of Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The
Iron Lady. The latter just got her nose over the
finish line first for impersonating an actual person — and a
famous one at that, so that savvy audience members could compare
the original with her excellent copy — rather than a fictional
character, but Glenn, who is female, may have had the more
difficult task in taking on the role of a woman playing a man in
Victorian-era Dublin. Of course, she has it a little easier than
her eponymous character, since she is a woman playing a woman
playing a man and since she doesn’t have so much at stake in
keeping the secret of her true sex. In fact, the movie doesn’t even
try to keep the secret from us, at least not beyond its first few
minutes, which could be a bit risky on Mr. Garcia’s part. It would
not do for him to allow his audience to feel too superior to his
other characters, only one of whom has a clue, until the big
reveal, about Albert’s real identity.
But then that’s really the question that is meant to
interest us. What is Albert’s real identity? Miss Close
told John Hiscock of the (London)
Daily Telegraph that “I’d
always felt that because my face is very well known it would have
been a burden in this part, but after I was made up I looked in the
mirror and it wasn’t me any more. There was this strange creature,
and I started to cry. It was like — there she is.” The tears, I
take it, were tears of joy. She reckoned, as the Academy has since
done, that turning herself into Albert was a tremendous
achievement, as indeed it was. Yet that achievement is also
curiously at odds with the premise of the film, which can be summed
up in the progressive principle that I had occasion to mention in
my recent review of Young
Adult — and which is very dear to the heart of the
progressive media culture as well — that it is dishonest, quite
wrong, and probably dangerous for people to assume any other
identity than that of the person who they think they
are.
To be sure, who Albert thinks he — or she — is is
perspicuous neither to Albert nor to us. We learn that he first
assumed the identity of Albert, rather than who she presumably was,
on account of male sexual violence, but that is presumably the
fault of the males’ choosing to conform to less benign sexual roles
laid down for them by society. And society has since done such a
good job of forcing Albert into the role of Albert that she has all
but forgotten that she was ever anyone else. When her friend and
fellow cross-dresser, Hubert (Janet McTeer), made privy to her sad
history, asks her what her real name is, she looks bewildered:
“Albert,” she says. That’s as real as it gets for her. At another
point in the film, Albert is serving at costume ball in the 19th
century Dublin hotel where he works when he is accosted by Brendan
Gleeson’s Dr. Halloran. “Why aren’t you in fancy dress?” asks the
doctor.
“I’m a waiter.”
“And I’m a doctor. We are both disguised as ourselves,” he
observes sagely.
Yet, in another scene, we see Albert and Hubert attiring
themselves as women and taking a stroll on the beach. Albert
appears to experience a sense of euphoria at recapturing the
feeling of being a woman, which he says he has almost forgotten.
Hubert tells her: “Albert, you don’t have to be anything but who
you are,” which, under the circumstances, is probably not exactly a
reassuring thing to hear. It certainly doesn’t help her to figure
out who she is. But the film — fatally, I think — glosses over
this little difficulty, preferring instead to follow Albert’s
attempt to fall in with Hubert’s imperative to “Find someone to
start a new life with.” Hubert him- or herself has done this by
taking a wife, Cathleen (Bronagh Gallagher), with whom he or she
seems to be blissfully happy — though beyond that we are not
encouraged to inquire. Albert naturally wonders, “Did he tell her
he was a woman before the wedding, or after?” when he or she
decides to go and do likewise by proposing to Helen (Mia
Wasikowska), a little flirt of a serving girl in the hotel where
they both work.
It does seem rather odd — does it not? — that when
“Albert” sets her cap at Helen or “Hugo” is depicted in a state of
cozy domesticity with Cathleen that there is apparently meant to
seem something slightly indecorous about the question of how the
overtly female partner in the relationship is meant to feel about
it. There is just the slightest of hints that the secret of
Albert’s sexuality might come as a bit of a shock to Helen on their
wedding night, but not that the latter’s possible preference for a
male rather than a female husband should otherwise be a matter of
concern to her would-be swain. And, so far as she herself knows,
Helen does prefer men, as she is already seeing the rough diamond
of a hotel handyman, Joe (Aaron Johnson). Joe wants her to
encourage Albert’s attentions because the latter has got some
savings that he intends to put towards buying a tobacconist’s shop.
“You’re going to go out with him as long as there’s a bob in his
pocket and you have a hand to pull it out,” Joe tells
her.
Significantly, Joe has some identity problems as well. His
dad was a drunk who beat him savagely and he finds, when he gets
his hands on some of Albert’s money, that he is rather fond of the
bottle himself. “You’re a boozer, just like your dad,” says Helen
in one of their quarrels. He, for his part says, “I don’t want to
be that person; I don’t want to be me fecking dad.” In his case,
however, it is his genes and not his wishes that appear to be his
destiny. The also drunken Dr. Holloran, who is meant to be the
film’s chorus, later says with a melancholy air, “I don’t know what
makes people live such miserable lives” — and he soon runs off to
London with another of the hotel maids because he is said to be
“tired of secrets.” But poor Joe, who is likewise off to America as
soon as he can find a way to get there, should serve as a reminder
that it is not always secrets that cause unhappiness. Sometimes
it’s surrendering prematurely and too completely to the
inevitability of who you think you are.
