THE LAUREATE - FILM FESTIVAL
The newcomer, Laura Riding in the fireside bath, no worries she would take over the household
The First World War is over but not for Robert Graves, poet and soldier. Fresh from the devastation and slaughter of the bloody action, he is haunted by his own death. Graves was injured at the Battle of the Somme and presumed dead. His parents had The Telegram we glimpse it from time to time in this intense scrutiny of the writer’s past . He is haunted almost to madness by the horrors he saw in warfare. His brave and ironic poems are a product. But in this film the Director William Nunez has gone deep into the psyche of the damaged man as he tries to live civilian life with his lovely wife , Nancy played beautifully by Laura Haddock, and his dear little daughter .
Despite the idyllic country cottage they have rented - and the untiring devotion of his lovely artist wife, life for Robert Graves is a restless torment, troubled to the brink of insanity by sounding guns and horrifying cries. His hours or days in the mud of Flanders field, unconscious have scarred his psyche to the point of extinction. Tom Hughes does a brilliant job as the tormented poet as he struggles to write again and tries to contain the bitterness he feels as a War Poet without a War. Yet we see the two young people together in their little family as they collaborate on a children’s book - Nancy does the illustrations and all appears to be getting better.
Tom Hughes as Robert Graves Depressed and haunted by war
At this moment Laura Riding, an American poet Robert Graves already admires appears. From the moment the camera pans over her glamorous figure on the doorstep, she spells trouble. Played beautifully in both senses by Diana Agron, she shimmers with lively vitality and stylish savoir- faire. Into the dusty old fashioned life of the Graves she brings a dazzling quality of stardom. Once she has charmed them all, she begins a sexual affair with both of them, al the while trying to get her own work published.
Suddenly Robert is offered a book deal . He must go to London to write and research the life of T.E. Lawrence and we see the rather grand car pulling away from the World’s End cottage, headed for the bright lights. The only two occupants are Laura Riding the bewildered looking Graves.
Entertainingly we are in a busy London ( the life in the Oxforshire cottage had begun to pall on me, I confess, despite the simmering sex at every turn). We meet a.mostly convincing T.S. Eliot and Siegfried Sassoon, who all sympathise with the damaged friend of the past. But in contrast, Laura goes down badly with the literary circle and despite her charm, fails to captivate any publishers. As Robert Graves writes his brilliant way back to fame, she gets dismissive letters from Virginia and Leonard Woolf whom she had hoped would take on her books. Gradually she becomes more controlling and in fact manically autocratic and as Robert’s visiting wife says firmly “ She is mad.’ Robert cannot agree even as she takes on an Irish poet as a lover. Laura, now very unstable takes a desperate turn.
Despite the costumes and the considerable talent in the acting , it was hard to identity with this vacant Robert Graves. Unapproachable , he seemed like a cypher, a hollowed out creature with emotions deeply buried .Lovely though she was, his wife’s supine acceptance became a bit of an irritant but I did love the character of the Irish poet who coincidentally was the only one who got his shirt off - an attack of coyness appeared to overcome the other characters throughout. He fell in love with the desperate distraught Nancy and stood up to the commanding manipulative Laura in the best scene in the film.
