Reviews

If I were to pick the single element that makes this movie work it would have to be its rare mood of authenticity. It's characters and environment convey a sense of people actually living in a remote rural region of 17th Century England. Credit goes to the filmmakers for trying to populate the story not with Hollywood's stale stock characters but with people recognizable as real, albeit living in a culture of a different time and place.

And in this time and place - where beliefs would figure more prominently than knowledge even in normal times - frightening inexplicable events become even more dreadful.

This isn't a strongly plot driven movie. For the first half of it we see more the consequences of the evil, without explanation of what it means or even exactly what it is that's happening. But because of that we are put into the same helpless position as the innocent and good characters in the movie. And people who turn to evil? A nice touch is that that the actors don't go over the top trying to be the most utterly evil of all possible screen characters. Rather, they are evil enough, but appropriately for who and when and where they are. And in a sense that is the REAL evil that happens in the movie, the people who become so.

And that's why the movie survives the murkiness of its presentation of the more overt evil. Since even after seeing the movie it may be unclear, here it is, with a mild ***SPOILER*** warning because the confusion actually creates some of the atmosphere in the early part of the film:





Various body parts of an evil being (called "The Devil" by the locals, though we needn't take that too literally) begin turning up, occasionally found in places like a plow furrow, but most often through the transformation of body parts of the local people. These parts are then cut off either voluntarily (by those who become this "devil's" followers) or involuntarily (from those who don't). The aim is to re-assemble them and actually create the body of this being.

But in truth this is only the motivation and background to the main focus of the movie, which is to produce an excellent period piece where the people act and react to a horror in character with their times and culture. And it's a pure pleasure that they succeeded in that. But as a movie and as a story would have been helped by running somewhat longer, so they could linger over some events and add more depth to the characters and their interactions. For as it is, sometimes a brief scene, or even just a few lines, are used to set up situations where a more extended treatment would have enhanced all the scenes that followed. That the story still held together using so little glue to stick the scenes into place shows commendable efficiency in the writing, but perhaps it was excessive efficiency. The ending is particularly hurt. A resolution should flow from the main body of the story and not from a relatively minor side-stream. Their ending came very close to being merely tacked on. Not quite, but they could have used more storytelling glue when they put it in place.





And I do have to mention the wonderful score. The melody of main theme sounds like it's based on an old English folk song, but it's arranged in a very 20th Century horror manner. The result is superb. Not only is it haunting, creepy and effective, where a mere switch in key can make it sweet or spooky, but the basic tune is also appealing and memorable.

From what I've written here, pointing out flaws and weakness, you probably won't pick up on just how extraordinarily fond I am of this movie. It's the kind that can stick in my mind for decades between viewings and I wish people would make more like it.

About the version I rented (under the title "Blood of Satan's Claw", distributed by the Cannon Group)... though less edited than the TV version I saw some 30 years ago, still this video shows signs of being cut. Though by todays standards this movie's virtually sole scene of sex and violence would be exceptionally mild, evidently it was considered too much at some time in the past. I dislike this kind of editing in general and I find the choppy cuts and jumps in the music during this one scene to be irritating. If an original version exists on video, possibly under a different one of its several names, that would be the one to own, though feel free to rent any version... the edits are minor and shouldn't be cause for you to pass on this movie.

I haven't seen or read the play 'Idioglossia' on which this movie was based, but its title indicates where the emphasis was probably placed... on the attempt to communicate and understand this woman who was raised under extraordinary conditions. Movies don't usually thrive when done in the same tight, focused manner of a stage play, so it's customary to expand adaptations with additional locations, events, and subplots. Unfortunately for 'Nell' these are utterly conventional, filled with stereotypes and a sampling of the usual cliches. This takes time and attention away from the fascinating core story and the superb performance by Jodie Foster.

The story begins with the discovery that a reclusive old woman has died and has left a grown daughter alone in their remote cabin. Originally she is thought to be a "wild child" since she doesn't understand English and only utters what sounds like gibberish. Besides that, her behaviour is very peculiar and everyone's first impression is that she is also somewhat retarded, if not mentally ill.

But the movie and Foster display an understanding of their subject matter almost unique in a Hollywood movie. A true "wild child" (that is, a child who grows up isolated from human contact without learning a language) pretty much never can learn to speak normally or function independently in society. But this isn't the case for Nell. She lived with her loving mother all her life and did indeed learn to speak as any child would. It's just that the language we hear her speak is unique to herself (the definition of 'idioglossia') which was caused by a couple of different circumstances.

Her mother had suffered a stroke (if I recall correctly) which drastically affected her own ability to speak clearly, and this was the model for Nell's own speech, never having heard any other. Nell also had a twin sister who died when they were children. Typically twins develop their own language ("twin speech") to talk to each other when they are very young. Also typically they tend to outgrow and forget this language as they grow older. The movie postulates that Nell and her sister never discarded their language, not implausible considering their circumstances, and that Nell retained into adulthood much of that language even after the death of her sister.

The final elements of Nell's seemingly odd behaviour is simply a matter of a clash of cultures. Nell and her family were essentially a people unto themselves, living in isolation and out of contact with the rest of society. Some of their customs and beliefs were generated from the traumas suffered by the mother, others spontaneously arose from simply living the life they were leading. These seem peculiar to outsiders from our own, very different, culture; though it's just ordinary life to Nell. Even more peculiar is the outside world to Nell. The shock and recoil that she often undergoes comes from being suddenly confronted by inexplicable, unimagined, and overwhelming events totally beyond a lifetime's experience and coming directly on the heels of the death of her mother.

When the movie centers on these elements it is entirely engrossing. Foster is fully convincing in her role, and clearly understands the complex nature and history of Nell. Despite everyone's first impressions, Nell is never anything but an intelligent adult woman confronting a strange and often hostile world, and attempting to adapt to it as best she can. Her interactions with Neeson's and Richardson's characters are often complex and traumatic enough to keep the film moving in the absence of the other, extraneous, elements.

Had the movie concentrated more intently on this interaction and devoted more time to it, which is really the whole point of the film, or had it done a better and more original job of expanding it's vision during it's adaptation to film (those parts involving the sheriff's wife showed unexploited potential), 'Nell' could have been a great film. Certainly the superb cinematography shows one of the great advantages of film over the stage. But there was too much time spent on weak scenes for the movie to ever fully blossom.

So overall, despite its flaws, 'Nell' is a good film with many fascinating elements and an excellent performance by Jodie Foster. And that makes it well worth watching.