Patrick Redmond
Glenn Close plays a woman living as a man and longing for a woman (Mia Wasikowska) in "Albert Nobbs."
You'd expect a movie about a woman who masquerades as a man would reveal the circumstances that forced her to deepen her voice, crop her hair and don a high collar to conceal her Adam's apple.
What could her terrible secret be? What compelled her to suppress every feminine instinct and remain alone for decades, pretending to be a male waiter at a Dublin hotel?
Eventually, "Albert Nobbs" gives us that payoff. But when it comes, in a brief monologue delivered with quiet sadness, we no longer need to know: We have accepted Albert so thoroughly that all questions of transvestism or gender confusion vanish. He (a pronoun I'll use for simplicity) could be any person anywhere who has hidden a true self and longs, however hopelessly, to reveal it.
The story comes from a novella by Irish writer Brian Moore, which means it's going to be permeated with the longing of a person reaching out, perhaps for the last or only time, for companionship.
That person is Albert (Glenn Close), who looks to be about 55 and lives in one small room at the top of the hotel. He's no miser, but his lone pleasure comes from adding the day's tips to the stash under the floorboards, which is approaching the 600 pounds needed to buy a tobacconist's shop. (The story takes place about 1900.)
Then Albert meets freewheeling house painter Hubert Page, who represents his liberation and his downfall.
Finding liberation
Hubert (remarkable Janet McTeer), whose loose smock also hides a bosom, has married a woman and settled down to a happy domestic life. Albert realizes for the first time that public concealment and private freedom could go hand in glove, and he sets his sights on saucy maid Helen Dawes (Mia Wasikowska). But Helen has fallen for repairman Joe Macken (Aaron Johnson), who plans to take her to America - if they can raise enough money.
You may think you see where this plot is headed. But the script by Gabriella Prekop, John Banville and Close doesn't follow traditional routes. Macken does remain a stereotype: the irresistible Irish wastrel, equally ready to lift a whiskey bottle or a skirt and inclined to bat men or women around when he's in a dark mood. But everyone else in the story turns out to be more complicated, from a tippling doctor (Brendan Gleeson) to the hypocritical hotel manager (Pauline Collins).
Most movies about people passing themselves off as the opposite sex can't sustain the illusion, but "Nobbs" does. The towering, husky-voiced McTeer never falters: Even her kindly, feminine warmth toward Albert seems like the sympathy a gentle man might show toward a female friend.
Not a male impersonator
Close doesn't just impersonate a man, with her amiable growl of a voice and pinched walk; she becomes one, and we lose sight of the difference. By the time Albert and Hubert don female clothes for a beach outing, trying to discover the feelings they've missed all their lives, they look like men in drag!
Close has worked twice before with director Rodrigo García, on "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her" and "Nine Lives." He knows when to pull back from Albert, so we see him with detachment, and when to close in, so tiny cracks in his facade become apparent. (When Albert risks a smile 50 minutes into the picture, his face transforms.)
Close is all over this movie: co-writing the screenplay, co-producing, writing the lyrics to the song played over the credits. She'll be 65 in March, and she hardly acts in features now: She has appeared in just one other film since 2005. "Albert Nobbs" reminds us of the skill and humanity we've missed, and how lucky we are to have her from time to time.
