Ethan Frome
Directed by John Madden
At the Kino, Melbourne, from late October
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
Forbidden passion seems to be a sexy topic among independent and art house cinemas these days — or perhaps it always was. John Madden's Ethan Frome looks at this subject against the frozen isolation of a small farm in 19th century Vermont, USA.
In Ethan Frome we follow an idealistic young clergyman, new to a small rural parish, on his concerned investigation of the hidden past of an ostracised cripple, Ethan Frome (Liam Neeson). Ethan's unmentionable sin was forbidden love, and his punishment was to be crippled and ostracised for the rest of his life.
The forbidden passion begins when Ethan's sickly wife, Zeena (Joan Allen), arranges for her young cousin Mattie (Patricia Arquette) to move in with them to help her keep house. An unspoken but mounting attraction between Mattie and Ethan finally finds expression when Zeena makes an overnight visit to town to see a new physician.
Zeena returns unexpectedly, discovers the affair and sends Mattie away. The forbidden lovers, trapped by social disapproval and their sense of obligation to Zeena, then seek a last shared exhilaration — snow sledding down a dangerous slope. It occurs to them that their only escape seems to be a tragic end together.
In the romantic tradition forbidden passion always leads to tragedy. Even today's sophisticated independent cinema finds it hard to break from this tradition when dealing with the topic, although arguably in Jane Campion's celebrated and much-discussed The Piano a more optimistic outcome is depicted. But the tradition is so strong we expect tragedy to follow as surely as sunset follows sunrise — as though this is simply a part of immutable human reality. A film-maker might even worry that his/her audience would be disappointed if this iron law were broken.
This romantic tradition does reflect what seems to many an immutable social reality. Sexual freedom will be denied to most people until a different society is fashioned.
While in The Piano Campion provides an individual way out for her 19th century forbidden lovers by arming them with a more advanced sexual etiquette than might be expected, in Ethan Frome tragedy remains inescapable. But Ethan Frome's strength is in pointing to society's responsibility for making the forbidden lovers' happiness near impossible. Mattie and Ethan discuss their plight but cannot find a responsible way out.
This tale, adapted from a classic 1911 novel by Edith Wharton, has a twist at the end but it is not one that cheats tragedy, as in The Piano. It serves to underline the social nature of the problem over individual responsibility.