Buccaneers, The
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Actor: Alison Elliott, Carla Gugino, Cherie Lunghi, Mira Sorvino, Rya KihlstedtBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 300 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-18
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E2494
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- Deemed nouveau riche and shunned by elitist New York society, sisters Nan and Virginia St. George, along with their friends Lizzy Elmsworth and Conchita Closson (Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino), try their luck in London. The girls' New World spontaneity and impertinence constitute nothing less than a social invasion of Old World society and they soon find themselves courted by a coterie of fasc
DVD Reviews of Buccaneers, The
DVD Review: 3.5 stars
Summary: 3 Stars
I enjoyed this production. The acting is high quality - Mira Sorvino's performance is exceptionally so; also Cherie Lunghi and Jenny Agutter's, and Connie Booth in a smaller supporting turn. Michael Kitchen and Greg Wise are excellent as the outsider-Englishman and his ambitious son - the son who won't conform to his father's dreams.
I thought the writers kept a great deal of accuracy in the depiction of how American heiresses were married off into British aristocratic society - and how they were treated, afterward. In other words, the American girl's money was warmly welcomed, but the girl was someone to be patronized as an "American mongrel" by her mother- and sister-in-laws; at least, until she produced an heir and a spare, and gained a little power for herself. The writing here might not be strictly Wharton-by-the-book (and it's something of a mongrel Wharton anyway, having been finished by another author), but Wharton based these particular young women and their lives on real people (such as Jennie Jerome and Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester), and that genuine true-life quality has been kept. The attitude of the Duchess, Nan's mother-in-law, toward Nan, and all of Nan's difficulties and emotions, is exactly right, and yet the Duchess's backstory, when we learn it, makes us pity her too - briefly.
My problem with the production is a kind of abruptness that occurs too frequently - scenes that end suddenly and aren't followed up (for example, Julius's marriage proposal to Nan - and in their next scene they're married & returning from their honeymoon). Lizzie Ellsworth's marriage isn't given as full a treatment as the other Buccaneers, which disappointed me. She marries an interesting character - Hector Robinson, the non-genteel, social-climbing MP, but their relationship is given short shrift. The viewer is given a little more in-depth regarding Conchita's and Virginia's marriages, but there again, there is a stop/start abruptness and gaps left in their stories. Really the only Buccaneer I could say we get to "know" is Nan St. George, because her marriage is given the fullest attention; especially the last two episodes. I liked knowing all about Nan but I also wanted more about the others.
While THE BUCCANEERS doesn't have the directorial smoothness and narrative flow of most BBC adaptations, the story isn't boring (as some reviewers have said). It's funny to me that anyone who purchased this DVD, and presumably read something about its content first, could expect a sparkling-sunny Jane Austen-style adaptation, such as a certain Regency cupcake where a handsome rich man marries a pretty, witty poor girl with four sisters, and all the loose ends are tied up by the end. Even though the Bennett sisters had to marry money, there was a lightness about their search for married happiness. THE BUCCANEERS is a grittier story - it's mid-Victorian England and the beginning of the end for the aristocratic landed class (something that only Hector Robinson sees, even as he aspires to join it). The real-life aristocratic landowners wanted money to keep up their way of life; American heiresses had the money, and many were married off without love, for the sake of a title. Many of the fictional British characters portrayed here are craven; are users, and manipulative and unattractive. The young and naive Americans had to toughen up and adapt to British aristocratic ways, Virginia and Conchita do, or not, in the case of Nan. This story struck me as an accurate representation of what happened to many rich young American women, at least from what I've read about 19th century Anglo-American marriages.
I have to respond to those reviewers who complained about how these women lacked 'gumption' or that they sat around, 'whining' about their fates. Anyone who watches this DVD should remember the time period, when even wealthy young women weren't well educated (only by a governess, if she was lucky) and were raised with the view that marriage was their only future. A woman became a man's property upon marriage, with her money belonging solely to him. (If she was lucky, as Jennie Jerome was, her American father might insist on at least a part of it remaining in her control. But that didn't happen often.) One also has to remember that they barely knew their husbands, let alone what marrying a British Lord would entail - sacrificing their American heritage and citizenship to take on a British one, and a totally unknown, cliquish/aristocratic territory at that.
But the bottom line is, if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't buy the DVD, but would borrow it from the local library. Although it's a good story, and occasionally a very good and always well-acted story, it's not quite a keeper, due to the somewhat choppy way the multi-narrative was handled.
Description of Buccaneers, The
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 04/18/2006 Run time: 300 minutes Rating: NrBestsellers in DVD
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