If a chaperone is the person who is supposed to be there to stop anything too racy happening this is an aptly named movie. It’s the story of a woman who manages to mentally and physically throw off her corsets while making the audience feel like they are easing into a pair of slippers. They are a lovely pair of well-made slippers. It’s just that there is a bit of excitement missed in between the two activities.

As a recipe it looks pretty spicy. Norma Carlisle, played by Elizabeth McGovern from Downton Abbey, secures the role of chaperone in order to leave Kansas in 1922 and get to New York to find the mother who abandoned her to an orphanage. Norma is fleeing a marriage thrown into chaos by the discovery of her husband (Robert Fairchild) in bed with a man and the revelation that he has been with this lover since before their marriage. He had plucked her from her dead adoptive parent’s home at 16 because her innocence was useful for a man seeking social cover rather than romance.

Norma’s ward (Hayley Lu Richardson) is the future huge silent movie star Louise Brooks. Louise sweeps her way into the New York Denishawn dance academy charming those around her with her free spirit. Not a virgin since before she left her hometown Louise is ready to either shake off her chaperone or get Norma to loosen up and embrace a new world.

At first Norma retreats into moralizing after her recent marital shock. The liberated example of Louise and the obstacles thrown in her path as she tries to find her mother (Blythe Danner) eventually push her to break free. She begins an affair with the man (Géza Röhrig) helping her find the records of her mother. He reawakens her sexuality and when Louise asks “Norma, when you took of your corset that day did you ever put it on again?” she proudly says “No, I never did”.

The story, part told in flashbacks, lets the drama slip through its hands. The infidelity is shown in too short bursts to gain momentum. Issues are raised but never developed. At the beginning acquaintances of Norma mention that they are going to join the Ku Klux Klan but, apart from a raised eyebrow that she gets seated next to a black person in an NYC theater, racism and segregation breezily pass as a hiccup not a gasp. Prohibition whistles by as a hangover after a night of gin. Homophobic violence gets treated like an inconvenience rather than a death sentence.

The ending comes as a surprise because Norma radically knits together a new kind of family life that includes her gay husband, his lover and her own. It is hard to believe that the lukewarm characters have the guts to make it happen. Overall it is a well shot movie with a certain warmth. Despite McGovern’s mild, glassy eyed acting and that there is scant evidence that Louise is a great performing talent it’s a Sunday afternoon kind of movie that works for curling up in comfort clothing.

The Chaperone is directed by Michael Engler from a screenplay by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes adapted from a novel by Laura Moriarty

 

 

Review by Andrew Hebden

Queerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.