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Dreamchild (1985)

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20 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!, 15 December 2004

Author: aimless-46 from Kentucky

Let me start by simply saying that the reaction I had viewing this film was unlike any other viewing experience I can recall. Although I found it well written and produced, I was so disappointed by the 2/3's point that I almost stopped watching. Yet by the end I was absolutely embracing the whole thing. So if you are a Lewis Carroll fan keep an open mind and watch the whole thing, you may find the whole much greater than the sum of its parts. And you may even find yourself willing to accept the historical fiction as necessary to better tell the story.

I suppose a large part of my initial negative reaction was due to the film's puzzling failure to capture a fundamental aspect of Alice Liddell's childhood personality. Alice spent much of her time in "Wonderland" being p….d off; at the illogic, the rudeness, and the selfishness of the characters she met there. Both Alice's were proper and confident little Victorian girls who took themselves very seriously. I am sure that this was one of many "Real Alice" personality traits that Carroll transplanted to his "Wonderland" Alice. Often amused by her reactions of irritation and frustration, he constructed many of the story elements with the intention of getting indigent reactions from Alice and her sisters. I had hoped that this connection would be made by the film and was disappointed that it was not explored, although in retrospect you could argue that the older Alice's reactions to the characters she meets in America are identical to Alice's reactions to the characters in Wonderland. That the film does not explore my pet topic was disappointing but ultimately not fatal.

In all other respects the portrayal of young Alice Liddell was excellent. Amelia Shankley turned in a fine performance. She is clearly the best film Alice so far and it is a shame that they did not star her in an actual Alice film right after "Dreamchild" was completed. And Coral Browne was equally excellent as the older Alice.

This film is about how Alice's mother (who felt her daughter could find much better candidates for marriage as she moved into her teens) essentially poisoned her memories of Dodgson, leading her to believe that there was something wrong about his feelings for her (when in fact he was just a childlike personality who loved her more than his other child friends, but always with a shy innocence). It is also about the guilt the older Alice still feels over abandoning him just as she entered her teens, especially after all the innocent kindness he had shown. She is in denial about her affection for Dodgson and irritated because all the attention of his centennial is forcing her to recall those long-suppressed years of her life. And finally she feels that since she was not actually the little heroine who exhibited so much courage in "Wonderland", she does not deserve her sudden celebrity status. In her view she was catapulted into fame "by simply doing nothing". Remember that Wonderland Alice is arguably the bravest literary heroine of all time.

What ultimately redeems the film is the climatic scene in the hall of Columbia University. Alice Liddell flashes back to a scene late in her relationship with Dodgson, a symbolic scene meant to represent the end of their relationship. She had outgrown him at this point in her life and she laughs and humiliates him as he attempts to sing his Lobster Quadrille song to the three Liddell sisters and their male suitors. When her mind returns to the present she hears the Columbia University orchestra and glee club performing the same song. She realizes that the story which she once rejected was in fact his personal tribute to her and that even after all these years each little detail of his creation is admired throughout the world. At this point she finally gets it. She goes back to the symbolic scene as her older sister Lorina reads the final paragraph from the Wonderland book, the one in which Dodgson reveals the reason he made up the story. Then the child Alice walks over, kisses Dodgson in apology, and places her head on his chest (an omission for which she has long felt guilty). Then we are back in the hall and find that in place of her prepared speech she has read this same passage to the now applauding crowd.

The point is that she finally understood that the story was a gift to her and to future generations of children, that she had inspired the story and had been the model for his heroine. With this realization came the final gift of knowing that the virtues Mr. Dodgson gave his heroine: innocence, courage, curiosity, wonder, kindness, intelligence, courtesy, humor, dignity, and a sense of justice; were virtues he credited to the real Alice.

It is hard to imagine a better scene (or sequence of scenes) than the climatic one detailed above. Film and video cannot hope to compete with books in communicating thoughts. But with the right players film can visually communicate moments of character realization and transformation to a degree much more subtle and personal than what any author can write. This is the real magic of film and acting for the camera. In the end these climatic moments say everything that needs be said about the relationship between Dodgson and his "dreamchild". A truly great cinematic moment and my all-time favorite.

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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
a brilliant, beautiful film, 9 August 2002

Author: rcameron from New Orleans, LA, USA

Dreamchild is a beautiful and tender exploration of the (non-sexual) love of children which prompted the Rev. Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll) to write _Alice in Wonderland_. The story begins in 1932 as 80 year old Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell, the inspiration for the fictional Alice) and her timid personal maid Lucy reach New York City to participate in a centenary celebration of Dogson's birth. Coral Browne is outstanding as Mrs. Hargreaves and Ian Holm plays Dodgson perfectly. Amelia Shankley is also excellent as the young Alice, seen in flashbacks and "dream" sequences involving characters from the book. The puppets, for lack of a better word, created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop (??), are faithful recreations of the original Tenniel drawings and, for the most part, much of their dialog is adapted from the book and wonderfully integrated into the film.

Besides the main plot there are several sub-plots, and the clashes between the upper class British woman and the rude, intrusive press are quite amusing, especially so when one considers how much worse the "news media" have become. The film touches on the plight of Lucy, a docile servant to Mrs. Hargreaves who worries about her future after Mrs. Hargreaves "meets my maker," as she puts it. Luckily for Lucy there is the American reporter Jack, who falls in love with Lucy and eventually convinces her it is not solely his desire for money ("You can tell when he's talking about money. His lips go all wet.") which draws him to the two women.

Through the flashbacks and dream sequences we see little Alice and Mrs. Hargreaves in various situations which shed more light on her friendship with Mr. Dodgson, whom she has almost completely forgotten as an old woman. Many details of the plot are taken directly from Alice in Wonderland and Dodgson's diaries and letters, making it an even greater pleasure for those familiar with his life. Initially Mrs. Hargreaves is terrified of dredging up long-forgotten memories but slowly comes to understand, accept, and express true appreciation for the love Dodgson felt for her, and many other children throughout his life.

This beautiful and moving film didn't receive the recognition it deserves due to the timing of its release, which unfortunately coincided in the USA with the witch-hunts and hysteria of the baseless "child-care Satanic abuse" cases popping up all over the country. Dodgson was, by most standards, an unusual man whose life-long stutter and natural shyness made him uncomfortable with many adults, but with small children he worked magic. He was one of the first amateur photographers and some have interpreted his penchant for taking pictures of children "au naturel" as an indication of pedophilia. Anyone who has read his diaries or letters knows he was most scrupulous about taking these types of pictures and virtually never did so without receiving parental permission, often having a parent present during the session. Charles Dodgson loved children in a pure and non-sexual way and that love gave us two of the world's classics in children's literature. The film makes this perfectly clear and is a tribute to the genius and gentleness of this kind, loving, and brilliant man.

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
An amazing fictional depiction of Dodgeson & Alice, 31 December 2002

Author: drkjedi1-2 from California

This is a stunning film, there have been all kinds of rumors and stories about the Rev. Charles Dodgeson and just who he was. This film lovingly and sadly portrays a what-if tale about Alice Liddell, the real Alice, of his famous books and what Victorian society did to her memories of this delightful man. I am not a member of the camp that thinks Dodgeson had a unnatural love for little children I find it preposterous and slanderous to say the least. This movie portrays him brilliantly and Ian Holm is such a superb actor you really feel sad for the lonely man with no wife and children of his own who writes these wonderful tales only to be suspected of unacceptable feelings for the little girl. This movie gives us all that with some wonderfully creepy Wonderland sequences by Hensen's creature shop. Simply marvelous!

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
An Obsessive Love and Dark Memories, 22 February 2004
Author: timpuckett from New Jersey, USA

"Dreamchild" is a dark yet beautiful tale of an elderly woman haunted by the famous author who adored her as a child. It deals with love and fear, memories and the past, and the final recociliation of the two. Each character is succinctly and sympathetically drawn, from Lucy the young and naieve maid of the elderly Victorian Mrs. Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell), who, on her first visit to America, cannot understand the intense attention given to her because of her connection to Lewis Carroll/Rev. Dodgson. The movie seamlessly shifts from the present (New York during the Despression) to the past (Victorian England at Oxford University). Real fans of Alice in Wonderland may object to this depiction of Wonderland characters in a harsher, angrier light; such as when the 80 year old Mrs. Hargreaves meets the Mad Hatter. The Reverend Dodgson does not stand accused as Michael Jackson or like some members of the clergy today, but Mrs. Hargreaves does ask "My mother destroyed all his letters. Why would she do that?" But the younger Alice, when asked by her mother, "Why on earth would he say that to you?" answers straighforwardly, "Because he loves me, of course." A thought provoking film worth seeing if you can find it.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the most unique Alice stories ever told., 23 February 2004

Author: morton grimp from california

Exploring the life of Alice in the 20th century, constantly having flashbacks from Wonderland and her childhood relationship with Dr. Charles Dodson. This is one of the more interesting films ever made about Alice. She is now 80 years old and coming to New York. In New York she encounters a world where people are raving about Alice in Wonderland and they expect her to act just like the character. She is thus forced to remember the details of her childhood, Alice in Wonderland, and the man she once new, Dr. Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll).

The visuals in this film are very nice, thanks to the great work of the Jim Henson Company. A very different approach to Alice, and one of the few (if not the only) films to ever approach the subject of Dodson and his fixation on young girls. Interesting movie, watch it, and skip all those annoying Alice in Wonderland musicals that people can't seem to stop making.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
The Viewer in Wonderland, 10 August 2003

Author: j_eyon-2 from Seattle WA USA

Very moody and stylish movie - whose plot switches between three venues - the 1860s when Lewis Carroll introduced the Wonderland tales to young Alice and her sisters - the 1930s when the aged Alice visited the U.S. months before her death - and the surreal world of the Alice in Wonderland stories with story characters portrayed by wickedly designed Jim Henson puppets

Four actresses stand out in my memory - Coral Browne as the starchy old Alice - Amelia Shankley as the young selfcentered Alice - Nicola Cowper as old Alices companion and love interest to the young American reporter played by Peter Gallagher - and - in a small role - Caris Corfman as a wistful newspaper reporter - in addition to many fine British and American actors

My only gripe is Ian Holm's age - Holm was in his early 50s when he portrayed Lewis Carroll - who was closer to 30 when he first told the stories - there were concerns in his time about the purity of his interest in his child friends and photography subjects - such as Alice - Ian Holm brings that frightfully to life

This film took great care in evoking the respective time periods - using beautiful set designs and photography - as a result - the movie is itself an exotic journey into other times and places - with Alice still as protagonist

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A profound film about intense anguish and repression., 16 January 2002

Author: Daniel Thorlby (danielthorlby@hotmail.com) from North Yorkshire, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I first saw this film when I was 13, that was nearly 8 years ago. It's visual beauty and emotional truthfullness had a very deep impact on me at that time, I even had dreams about it, but my parents forced me to record over it, and I spent the next 7 years searching for a copy.

Now I have found a copy, and I just finished watching it for about the 20th time. After all those times, I STILL have managed to make new connections in my mind between the sections of dialogue. It is about Alice Liddell, the girl to whom Lewis Carroll told the Alice in Wonderland story for when she was very young. The film is incredibly complex, and the story is told on three plains. There are the scenes of Alice Hargreaves, or of Alice as an old woman, who is insufferably sour, reserved and repressed at the beginning. Then there are the scenes of Alice Liddell, or Alice as a little girl, emotionally alive, always game for a riddle or a game, but emotionally immature at first. She is 11 at the start of the film. Finally there are the scenes where the film turns to fantasy, featuring grotesque morphs of the mythical creatures of Alice's wonderland. This is the wonderland inside Alice Hargreave's mind, the wonderland which has become transformed after years of repression but which acts as the link between her present and her past. The dialogue between the creatures and the two versions of Alice mediate between the two.

The film opens with the Mock Turtle crying and the dialogue from Alice Hargreaves 'What is his sorrow?' to which the Gryphon replies 'T'is his fancy that. This Mock Turtle hasn't got any sorrow!' But we have to wait until the end of the film to realize the significance of these words, pressed home at the close of the film by the exact same scene, except that the question is now asked significantly by young Alice instead, showing that the old Alice has finally identified with the child within her, and has realised that she has no need for sorrow.

Alice Hargreaves had spent her life sorrowfully battling against the memories of her childhood. She finds all things to do with her old self distasteful. She hates riddles. In the beginning she claims to always 'says what she means!' To her riddles have no answers which is why she cannot solve the mystery of the repressed memories which plague her aged mind. 'What does it all mean?' she says when confronted by gangs of reporters wanting stories about her from her old life. As the film progresses, events trigger memories which shed light on what happened to her as a child. Twice during the film a trigger causes a flashback causing her to mull over the significance of her mother, who only plays a minor shadowy role in the actual film. Alice remembers her mother tearing up all her letters from Lewis Carroll.

We learn from a flashback at the beginning of the film that little Alice, totally unrepressed, knew perfectly well that Mr. Dodgson loved her!(Dodgson is the same as Lewis Carroll, fittingly played by Ian Holme, whom I was glad to see casted in Lord of the Rings playing a similar character.) Rather cruelly, she even surreptitiosly played a flirtatious game with his sensitive emotions upon catching him eyeing her up! But the little child that she is could not understand what it was that Dodgson was implying in his conversations with her, and as such could not understand the full extent of his love for her, and could not see the intense anguish that he was going through from not being able to fully express his emotion for her (being a repressed Victorian himself.) When Dodgson tries to have a heart to heart with her about how she shouldn't loose her head 'to the first spotted youth who comes along, because I...' at which point the famous stutter cuts him short... you can agonisingly see the 'l' of the 'love you' being formed on his tongue, but it never comes out. More significantly, when Mr. Dodgson presents little Alice with the first copy of 'Alice in Wonderland' asking her if she'll alwys remember what he wrote for her, and always cherish it, she replies 'of course I will!' but later in the scene she says 'it is only a book isn't it.' and Dodgson immediately looks hurt. It wasn't 'only a book.' It was his love that he was asking her to cherish for ever and always. He gave her his love with that book. But little Alice was too young to understand the connection.

It was a connection that Alice Hargreaves of the future had to come to terms with. Nearer the end of the film, during one of the mediating fantasy scenes, the riddle loving little girl is ridiculed by the Mad Hatter for apparently thinking that 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see.' After this flashback though the old lady finds herself casually in conversation claiming that she 'always means what she says!' Although it is not immediately apparrednt, from this point on she has unconciously solved the riddle, and therefore begins to solve the riddle of her past.

She is finally enabled to see the love that has developed between one of the reporters and her maidservant. Very near the end of the film she gives a speech upon recieving her honorary degree in which she calls Dodgson 'Lewis Carroll' (She had despised the pseudonym before her enlightenment to her past.) The crowning glory moment of the film is during this speech when she declares that she has now realised the true love that Lewis Carroll gave her, and the entirity of what that means. She finally recognises Lewis Carroll's love for the beauty that it always was. After all, how many little girls can claim that a man was so dedicated to her that he wrote her two novels? During the final speech there is a final flashback where Alice as a 12 year old realises the same thing about Lewis Carrolls love. Perhaps it is the same realisation which had subsequently become repressed and then unearthed during the speech. During the flashback The young Alice pauses for thought after having ridiculed Lewis Carroll, and then walks over to him, kisses him and cuddles him. The kiss is then replayed from a different angle.

She has made the connection between Lewis Carrolls gift of Wonderland and his love. But why did Hargreaves have to deny the personality of her childhood? Why was there something that she was forbidden to remember? Why the references to her mother? Alice Hargreave's personality as an old woman is foreshadowed by the serious, 'no nonsense' personality of her mother. It was her mother who even in reality tore up Alice's love letters from Dodgson. Alice's mother's stifling and repressively Victorian attitude towards the upbringing of her daughter is what caused her to turn against the truth of love that she knew in her childhood.

The moral of this film is what has made it remain the biggest classic of all time for me. What more could you ask of such a deep thoughtful and thought-provoking masterpiece of film. I just hope that many people will watch this film and realize the enormity of what it can teach them!

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Dreaming down the days, 5 November 2004
Author: alicespiral from Blackpool England

In order to fully appreciate this movie a knowledge of both Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll is recommended. For a film associared with Dennis Potter--who'd previously written an Alice in the 60s...you might expect smut but there's none here. Its all done very tastefully so it would disappoint anyone looking for titillation. Jane Asher has a minor role as Mrs.Liddell,shown as a chaperone on the famous river outing.She played Alice herself in the early 60s for a couple of studio casts. Though its artistic license to suggest Mrs.Hargreaves took along her maid in reality there were two others,one of which was her granddaughter. I liked the scene where Mrs.Hargeaves read out a commercial---for which they'd pay her 1000s of dollars: ""once when I was a little girl I fell down a rabbit hole then picked up a bottle with a label on which said DRINK ME.But today I look for a bottle which says CHARDONAY"

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Wishing for the DVD, 31 December 2005

Author: (jim-1490) from United States

This is both a beautiful and disturbing film. Ian Holm (recently playing Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) plays the Reverend Dodgson whom the world better knows as Lewis Carroll. Holm expertly dances on the razor's edge of Dodgson's obsession with the youngest of the three Liddle sisters. This is all experienced in recollections of the elderly Alice as she crosses the Atlantic to attend a 100th Birthday Celebration of Lewis Carroll. As she nears the end of her voyage, her dreams start to bleed into her realities. The Wonderland characters are perfectly grotesque Muppet versions performed by Jim Hemson's Creature Shop (we're not talking Kermit nor Miss Piggy here). This is based on the true people and is lovingly interwoven into a fictional account of the true voyage Alice Liddle Hargraves made to Oxford University in 1932. If you're lucky to have the VHS tape, guard it with your life, mine was destroyed and I can only pray this film will be transfered to DVD. Though we're talking Alice in Wonderland and Muppets, this is not a film for those under 17.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Amazing film with an amazing story, 15 May 2001

Author: kaaber-2 from Copenhagen, Denmark

I absolutely fell in love with this film when I saw it in Denmark in 1988. I can add nothing to the praise already given on this board, but the story behind the film is equally amazing. Apparently, the producers, Thorn-EMI, shelved this gem due to a palace revolution in the company. It was tied up in a package with some films nobody would buy, to the mortification of director Gavin Millar, writer Dennis Potter, and star Coral Browne. It ran for a very short time in Shaftesbury Av., London, where Danish Carsten Brandt from Posthusteatret in Copenhagen saw it, secured a copy - upon which the film ran for four straight years, every evening in his theatre.

I saw it some ten times during that run, and I suppose I shall never tire of it.

It's alarming how easy it is to keep a good film down for years if it's not promoted properly. Luckily, it has found its way to both movie theatres and TV since.

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