"Moll Flanders" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL June 15, 1996 The clear choice for feminist film lovers this week is not the film I'm about to review, but ANTONIA'S LINE, the Academy Award winning chronicle of five generations of remarkable women made by Dutch filmmaker Marlene Gorris. It has--finally--arrived in Tampa at the Tampa Theater and St. Pete Beach at the Beach Theater. See it, you'll like it. But since I had travelled to Sarasota to see it and review it a few weeks back, I set out last night in search of something else that might be interesting under my rubric "women and film." My choice was "Moll Flanders"--in part because the last "classic" that breezed into town recently, "Jane Eyre" was here and gone so fast I missed it and I didn't want that to happen again with this one. Besides, one of the local reviewers, who seldom "gets it" about women's films, thinks it's "overly PC" which is a sign that I might like it. And I DID like it, sort of. The first thing you need to know is that if you're looking for a dramatization of DeFoe's novel about Moll Flanders, this isn't it. The story is almost completely different and the credits say, correctly, that this film is based on the character from the novel, but not on the novel. The creative force behind this version is Pen Densham who co-produced, wrote, and directed this lavish production shot in Ireland--a fair enough stand-in for early 18th C. London. The story is told almost entirely in flashbacks after Mr. Hibble (Morgan Freeman) appears at a London orphanage and takes away a nine-year-old girl(Aisling Corcoran) whom he has spent many years looking for. His mysterious mission is two-fold--to take her to his employer Mrs. Allworthy who lives in the Americas, and, while on the journey, to read her the memoirs of her mother, Moll Flanders (Robin Wright). As he relates his tale to the, at first, rebellious and bored little girl, Moll Flanders autobiography unfolds on the screen. She was born in Newgate Prison, daughter of a petty theif who had been impregnated by a prison guard and who was hanged just as soon as she delivered her baby girl. Moll was raised in a convent orphanage where she grows up strong in body and will. She will not be taken advantage of by any man, not even a priest. So one day she prepares for her confession by bringing her knitting to church with her, and when the priest reaches through the screen to fondle her breasts, she stabs his hand with a knitting needle. When she's the one subjected to punishment instead of him, her convent days are over and she runs away. After an interlude helping out in the home of a well-meaning family she ends up working in a brothel, first as a serving maid and then as a whore. One thing the film does is give a pretty unvarnished picture of the options open to a "loose" i.e., unattached, woman in 18th C. London. The most fun performance in the picture is given by that wonderful actor Stockard Channing as the Madame of the house, Mrs. Allworthy, who has ups and downs of her own, but doesn't force Moll into prostitution, but lures her with the promise of having a sense of power over mem. A deep friendship deveops between Moll and Mr. Hibble and there is a particularly touching scene in which Moll tries to comfort him in his deep sorrow when one of the prostitutes who is his lover is sold off by Mrs. Allworthy. Incidents like this reveal how thoroughly they are trapped by their social and economic circumstances. It appears as though Moll might escape when she, overcoming deep misgivings, falls deeply in love with an artist (John Lynch) who hires her to model for him. It turns out he's from an aristocratic family but he rejects them when they refuse to accept Moll giving her the first interlude of real happiness in her life and her baby daughter. But it does not contiue. Nor will I. A reasonably interesting, reasonably entertaining film with a strong female heroine, good acting, nice production values, and a happy ending after much travail. Some spark is missing--I haven't figured out what, maybe Robin Wright's performance (I don't find her a particularly interesting performer) or maybe the pace (slow in spots)--but you could do worse. It's PG-13, a rating I heard grumbling about on the way out of the theater, but, despite the sex and violence, that seems to me to be the right rating. The film's basically a morality play in which the caring people prevail and the hypocrites lose. For the Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on women and film. . Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or reproduce this review without the permission of the author: mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.