Synopsis
A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.
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Cast
- Dakota FanningEuphemia 'Effie' Gray
- Emma ThompsonLady Eastlake
- Greg WiseJohn Ruskin
- Tom SturridgeEverett Millais
- Robbie ColtraneDoctor
- Julie WaltersMargaret Cox Ruskin
- Derek JacobiTravers Twiss
- Claudia CardinaleViscountess
- David SuchetMr. Ruskin
- James FoxSir Charles Eastlake
Recommendations
- 88
Slant Magazine
It spins the narrative of one of the Victorian art world's most mysterious marriages into a study of life lived and life merely examined, a fecund fairy tale in reverse. - 60
Time Out London
It’s a thoughtful, well-acted and perceptive drama. However, for a film about a love triangle the sparks don’t exactly fly. - 60
Total Film
Richard Laxton’s painterly film combines the gothic shadows of Hitchcock’s Rebecca with the gut-wrenching romance of A Royal Affair. The result is dark and offbeat, but as a murky anti-romance, Gray is undeniably effective. - 60
The Telegraph
There are clever and sensitive touches right through, and a moving ending. But Fanning seems wholly uncomfortable, and not always intentionally. - 60
The Guardian
It’s a little hammy and soapy, with an occasional Pythonesque sense of its own importance but this film, directed by Richard Laxton, is performed with gusto. - 50
Variety
This admirable, watercolor-delicate tale of individual feminist emancipation never quite blooms into living color, hampered by spotty casting and Richard Laxton’s overly deliberate direction. - 50
Movie Nation
Whatever “it” is, that spark that film actresses and actors have that makes them interesting and empathetic and anything else on the screen, Fanning doesn’t have it. - 40
Empire
Handsome, well-mounted but dull, dull, dull.
