Miss Julie is the daughter of a baron who decides to stay home with the servants instead of celebrating Midsummer’s Night Eve with her father at the homes of those in the same class. Kathleen, the cook, and John, the valet, tolerate their boss’ interruptions, but are visibly annoyed for different reasons. How will the night end?
I probably put Miss Julie in my queue because of the cast. I adore Jessica “I’m the motherfucker that found this place” Chastain on and off screen. I have grown to appreciate Colin Farrell’s acting range and ability and separate his public from his professional persona. I have never seen Samantha Morton be anything other than superb. If I had examined the movie a little closer, I would have realized that in spite of the cast, this type of fare is not usually my cup of tea.
Miss Julie is an adaptation of an August Strindberg play. I am neither familiar with the play nor the Swedish playwright, but the movie feels like a play, which I hate unless it was filmed live on stage. There should be a point in shifting mediums from stage to celluloid. The play originally was set in late nineteenth century Sweden, but the film changes the location to Ireland. Why? You tell me other than Farrell does not have to change his accent. Again the change of location should explore something deeper only eluded to in the play, but evokes a stronger theme with the alteration. Maybe it did, but I did not see it. There seemed to be no difference in the religious practices of the haves and have nots. The change solely seems to be practical—the film was shot in a late eighteenth century mansion in Northern Ireland. More puzzling, Liv Ullman directed the film, which I thought was an auspicious sign since she is a Swedish actor turned director who worked with and loved one of the great directors of our time, Ingmar Bergman. Apparently Ullman played the titular character so her cinematic translation should be the definitive interpretation of the work.
If it is, I am a philistine and did not get it, which is entirely possible because I am not a sophisticated theater goer, and I am convalescing so it is possible that I do not have the mental capacity to appreciate Miss Julie at this time. I think that what really spoiled my enjoyment of this play is seeing Lady Macbeth first, a film adaptation of a Russian novella set in a slightly earlier period that is an intersectional masterpiece. I have read neither. Miss Julie is so explicit and pedantic in the manner that it examines class, gender and sex that I kept waiting for Keenan Ivory Wayans in a mailman suit to leap out and scream, “Message” whereas Lady Macbeth was like an emotional thriller that kept me off balance regarding what demographic would win in which scene, and it included the trait of race!
I could not get in on the ground floor of Miss Julie because of the casting. These characters are supposed to be younger, probably their early twenties if not their late teens, and not ready to come out of the oven yet, but even though Chastain, Farrell and Morton are thespians, they do not possess time machines and do not fit that bill. It is really hard to watch grown ass adults pretend as if they do not already know who they are. In Morton’s case, it serves her character well because she is the only character who knows who she is and not desperately trying to change or feels trapped. In Chastain’s case, though her acting is phenomenal as she transforms from an inexperienced, self-assured young lady reveling in her power to unraveled by her daring to explore her boundaries and feel the pull of convention’s gravity, it is not entirely believable. She is no Ophelia meets Great Expectations. If she goes to the brook, she is the kind of person to take people with her. Farrell’s cowardly wavering between pride and desire veers towards weakness and cowardice, but a part of me should sympathize with him more as he tries to escape the orbit fueled by his ambition. A younger actor such as Jack O’Connell could do it.
Miss Julie also feels as if a man wrote it. The main character is really the valet, not the titular character, which surprised me, but it ultimately fails by being uncomfortable and shifting as quickly as possible from him being victim to victimizer. It never felt as if he was simultaneously both, which seems to be the point. I did like that he and Miss Julie have problems living and accepting the world because of adopting masculine gender norms, but the mirror Venn diagram shared by Kathleen and her boss is underdeveloped.
It is just a guess, but Ullman did make a noticeable addition to Miss Julie by briefly showing her as a child stepping into the wider world before fast forwarding and showing the child as an adult returning home. I intellectually comprehend that she is depicting an Edenic moment that will later play a pivotal role in the players’ power struggle, a theoretical meeting of the minds free from all the constraints that the characters will have once they are older, but I feel as if this departure put me in the wrong frame of mind to examine the titular character’s behavior. Also why show her as a child and not the valet too? I read a genuine tension between honest feeling and ego. Are they star crossed lovers and/or is he a playa? I do not think there has to be a straightforward answer and depicting a younger John would have added to the ambiguity.
I understand that Miss Julie depicts an empty, desolate house to reflect the titular character’s psychological state, her loneliness and desolation except for what she is focused on, but in this atmosphere, Kathleen feels like an afterthought. I wonder if depicting a bustling, functioning house filled with servants instead of voices would have improved the movie and actually enhanced how comparatively deranged John and Julie are in contrast. They are complete drama queens over nothing, which I understand was symbolically quite a lot, but not an insurmountable obstacle to a future. Even Kathleen, who clearly disapproves of their shenanigans and is more overtly devout than they, reacts less violently with possible solutions. It could be explained by class expectations, but women with means could lie. If it was not for my recent obsession with Midsommar, I would probably question John and Julie’s sanity less, but their reaction seems disproportionate to the actual problem.
If you expect Miss Julie to be a sumptuous period piece with excellent acting, I suppose it is, but it felt never ending, which I suppose is suitable for a summer solstice evening, and not in a good way. I cannot recommend it. It felt created and crafted as opposed to lived in. Watch Lady MacBeth and your favorite version of Great Expectations and Hamlet instead if you want to be impressed and not lulled into a stupor.
