Tom & Viv
by Brian Gilbert
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Product details
Actor: Miranda Richardson, Nickolas Grace, Rosemary Harris, Tim Dutton, Willem DafoeDirector: Brian Gilbert
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
Running Time: 115 minutes
Release Date: 1996-09-11
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Miramax
Studio: Miramax
VHS Movie Reviews of Tom & Viv
Movie Review: Excellent.
Summary: 4 Stars
Tom and Viv (Brian Gilbert, 1994)
Brian Gilbert's quietly heartbreaking drama Tom and Viv came and went with barely a blip at the box office, though it did get nominated for two Academy Awards; it should have been much more widely seen, I think. But what does the American moviegoing public, especially in the nineties, care for the life and marriage of a poet? For Tom and Viv are T. S. Eliot (Willem Dafoe, once again ignored by the Academy) and his mentally unstable wife Vivienne (Miranda Richardson, who did get a nomination for Best Actress).
The plot is simple and straightforward: American expatriate Tom, who according to the narration of Vivienne's brother Maurice (Tim Dutton) is trying to out-English the English, finds everything he's looking for in England in the person of Vivienne: she's upperclass, moneyed, a member of the British society, but with a wild, untameable streak. He falls in love and they elope, realizing only after they're married that Vivienne isn't just high-spirited, she's quite mentally unsound. Thus, Tom is brought in under the wing of Vivienne's family, made one of them by proxy, and much of the film alternates between Tom's attempts to handle Viv's erratic behavior and him commiserating with various family members. Finally, with everyone at the end of their collective rope, Tom and Maurice come up with a plan that will satisfy everyone except Vivienne herself.
This is a film that plays itself very close to the vest. It's staid, almost glacial on the surface, but simmers beneath with rage and despair. Dafoe and Richardson are both brilliant in their roles, and make an essentially plotless biopic into gripping viewing. Highly recommended. ****
Movie Review: The Dark Side Of T.S. Eliot--And A Study In The Medical Mistreatment Of Women
Summary: 3 Stars
With a sound cast headed by Miranda Richardson and Willem Dafoe, Tom & Viv is a good film about a spirited woman dealt an unfair hand in life, and the selfish man she married. It's also a slightly shocking film for portions of its subject matter, including some parts that might make certain male audience members squirm.
The story itself really made me dislike T.S. Eliot: and for once it was for more than just his---I think---bad poetry. This film tells what was once only whispered among Eliot scholars and was later forgotten, that being Eliot's unforgivably callous treatment of his decidedly hormonally unbalanced first wife, Viv. True, the "mercurial" and foul-mouthed proto-Flapper Vivienne Eliot was no doubt a trial for someone like the choleric Tom to bear, in fact they were a mismatched pair from the start, but for a man to lock his wife away for the duration of her remaining life, including for years long past the time there was any medical need for it (assuming there ever was)...it takes a cold being to be capable of that.
Never having been a fan of Eliot's work, I don't know enough about the details of the marriage at the heart of this story to comment on any errors this movie contained, but if it is reflective of the actual fate of Mrs. Eliot, then it's something people ought to know about the man whose playful little jottings gave us the musical Cats as well as those (IMHO) painfully awful pieces endemic in college textbooks, Murder in the Cathedral, and The Waste Land.
Good performances and a worthy revelation about a literary icon's heartlessness in his private life, but ultimately only three and a half stars, primarily for the fact that the script as written wasn't able to fully sustain the story at its final length.
Movie Review: Learn to hate TSE
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm sure Eliot scholars would have a lot to say about the film, but I'm one of those readers of Eliot who has just grown weary of his heavy handedness. So this film spoke to me--Eliot is shown to be overbearing, manipulative, and one unfeeling mofo. Good enough for me.Movie Review: Arty Schmarty
Summary: 3 Stars
"Tom and Viv" (1994) a Miramax biopic starring Willem Dafoe as the world-famous 20th century anglophile American poet T.S. Eliot, ("The Wasteland," "The Four Quartets") and Miranda Richardson as his unfortunate wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood, opens on the Oxford school days of the poet -- who was initially from St. Louis. We find him studying with Lord Bertrand Russell, well-known anti-war philosopher: another of Russell's students is Vivienne's brother, upon whose memories this film is based. It was filmed on location, around Oxford and London, and garnered two Oscar nominations, plus two other awards.
Tom and Viv elope, and it's basically all downhill from there: she has gynecological and emotional problems that disrupt even the honeymoon. Dafoe does the best he can with a part that's not written on the page: Richardson turns in one of her trademark manic performances. Rosemary Harris almost carries the picture as Viv's worried mum. We meet, briefly, the celebrated early 20th century literary group that centered around Bloomsbury, London-- Virginia Woolf and company. We get the obligatory slow Oxford river boating scenes, but the story stays slow, and doesn't really go anywhere. The sound's often bad, and the film's confusing. It raises the issue of why Eliot behaves as he did; and though you can't insist that a movie should do so, it doesn't answer the questions it's raised. It's the kind of movie, unfortunately, that gives art films a bad name.
Movie Review: What a tragic commentary on the treatment of women...
Summary: 3 Stars
I have watched "Tom & Viv" a few times now. After the first time, my foremost thought was "What a looney!", in regards to Vivien Eliot and her behavior. But, after more careful viewing and consideration, I've reconsidered that initial, first impression. While Vivien most definitely suffered from psychological problems, compounded by a hormonal condition, it is also a well known fact that physicians of the day considered most emotional and psychological problems in women to be due to "hysteria", due to the fact that women had female parts. Seriously, some doctors (or practioners calling themselves such) thought such "hysteria" could be controlled by either genital stimulation or hysterectomy. Both of these are outrageous and extreme, but then again, in this day and age, so is the idea of "moral insanity". Then again, if T.S. Eliot WAS as much of a stiff and a prig as this movie implies, who can blame her for pouring chocolate into his mail slot, when some snotty secretary throws the chocolate bar she leaves her husband back out of the slot? C'mon... what woman hasn't been pissed enough at her husband/boyfriend to do something "extreme", at one time or another. Take her emotional/mental state, add the hormonal imbalance and then consider, is it HER fault she acts on her impulse? Granted, she loses it completely with the knife/taxicab incident, but then again, earlier in the film, we overhear that she is being given ETHER, as treatment!!! The ignorance of the medical profession of that time makes one shudder!!! This film is, if nothing else, a window onto a terrible time in history for women. The ignorance with which they are treated and the patriarchal mindset of society leaves them precious little way in defense of themselves. Vivien had no where to turn for help, her father having left Tom in charge of her monies. She was probably quite desperate and couldn't do anything at all to help herself. If Tom was as dedicated to the church and conforming to society's "norms", her life must've been hell. You can see the utter helplessness on her face when the "inquisitors" come to "quiz" her, to see if she's crazy or not. (And, the "quiz" is ridiculous!!!) Then, the poor thing is grabbed up while having tea with a friend, in public!!! How awful! Just think what todays medicine could have done for her. Why, even back then, she's finally told there IS help for her, and that she has been left to rot by Tom... it's just so sad. It's all a sad commentary on society's treatment of women. If she had been born today, she might have been a brilliant author (or whatever), in her own right. Miranda Richardson may be playing it "over the top", as some have said, but then again, what if that was how it was? How tragic, for both Vivian, and in the end, Tom, as well. Remember, as this movie tells it, he was never informed of her "conditions" before their wedding. If this is true, he was tricked into a life of hell, by both her and her family. And, given what recourse he had, what could he have done? But, without their life together, would we have a work like "The Wasteland"? Hmm... food for thought. Anything with Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson and the rest of this marvelous cast is still better than most of the pap that Hollywood churns out... any day.
Summary of Tom & Viv
Tom is T.S. Eliot (Willem Dafoe), the St. Louis-born poet who tried to turn himself into an Englishman. Viv is his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood (Miranda Richardson). She's got money, which allows him to give up his job and focus on poetry. She urges him on, promotes him to the Bloomsbury group (which adopts him but looks down its nose at her), and begins to go slightly crazy. Is it Eliot's chilly demeanor (in a terrific repressed performance by Dafoe) that's driving her nuts, or something else? In fact, she suffers from misdiagnosed physical ailments, and a combination of drugs and alcohol send her around the bend. It's hard to get emotionally involved in Dafoe's Eliot or to really plug into this story, though Richardson's passion nearly pulls you in. --Marshall FineBiography Video
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