THE WINGS OF THE DOVE Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliott
Bonham Carter's career has been so associated with period pieces (A Room with a View, Howard's End), it has been easy to mistake her for mere set decoration, a beautiful curio. This dark, brooding adaptation of the Henry James masterpiece establishes her as an actress of fiercely concentrated emotional power. Here she plays a penniless young woman dependent on a rich aunt and feverishly in love with an equally poor journalist (Roache). Marry him, the aunt warns her, and suffer the financial consequences. Bonham Carter, unwilling to chose between passion for Roache and the plush comforts of wealth, smolders -- both with fury over her predicament and lust for Roache. A potential solution arrives when she forms a friendship with an American heiress (Elliott), who conveniently enough is not only charmingly naive but fatally ill. Bonham Carter urges Roache to woo his way into the heiress's affection. Who knows? Perhaps once Elliott has sunk into the grave, he'll be rewarded in her will. From this scenario grows a mènage that, in classic Jamesian fashion, is suffocatingly, neurotically intense. Imagine what the author would have done with My Best Friend's Wedding! As the other two-thirds of this morbid triangle, Roache and Elliott are each perfectly fine. But in the path of Bonham Carter's all-consuming fury, they're reduced to cinders. Hers really is a remarkable performance. (R) PHOTO: Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache (Mark Tillie/Miramax)
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