After smoothing out some wrinkles, period drama Effie finally seems ready to step before the cameras, with Dakota Fanning, Emma Thompson, Greg Wise, Tom Sturridge, Julie Walters and Derek Jacobi all in the cast.
Written by Thompson, the script focuses on the troubled real-life marriage between artist/poet/thinker John Ruskin and a young woman named Euphemia “Effie” Gray in London in the 1850s. Though Ruskin (Wise) was obsessed with the teenage girl (Fanning), when he married her, he was apparently so disgusted by some element of her body that he refused to perform his husbandly duties in the bedroom.
Effie was left to suffer through a loveless marriage and endless attacks by her in-laws (Walters and Jacobi), though she got some help from the kindly Lady Eastlake (Thompson). And she did finally find happiness with Ruskin’s protégé, artist John Everett Millais (Sturridge).
Richard Laxton is planning to shoot the film in London, Scotland and Venice this October. He’s probably relieved, since Effie has been at the centre of some controversy in its long development life. It was gearing up to shoot last year with a cast in place, but was thrown into doubt when playwright Gregory Murphy sued for copyright infringement thanks to his stage take on the marriage, The Countess. But that’s now been sorted and the movie can go forward...