Review – The Wings of the Dove

If I’m watching a movie based on Henry James’s writing, you can pretty much bet that it’s intended to be some kind of a horizon-broadening exercise rather than something I willingly sought out. James is one of the few authors that I literally cannot stand to read. Furthermore, I have a tremendous problem identifying with any character whose primary motivation is a fear of having to work for a living, and this movie is practically crawling with them. Indeed, our smarmy English protagonists set out to victimize a dying woman in order to save themselves from the wide world of employment. I suppose a sense of opprobrium should redeem the overall drama, but somehow the moral doesn’t justify the long, grim fable. See if desperate