Images of the Soul
The Governess
T. A. Kappelman
July 1, 1998
The Governess, directed by Sandra Goldbacher (Sony Pictures, 1998), 113 mins.
In Sandra Goldbacher's debut as a writer and director, an adventurous young girl unwittingly stumbles upon a technique that will revolutionize the world by opening up the human soul for examination and reflection. The Governess opens in nineteenth-century London with a young Jewish girl, Rosina de Silva (Minnie Driver), sitting in the balcony of a worship service. Rosina's father has died unexpectedly, and her family faces financial ruin if she does not consent to a marriage of convenience with a portly old gentleman. Believing that her father would have preferred her happiness over the family's financial security, Rosina rejects the offer of marriage and accepts a position as a governess in Scotland.
When she arrives in Scotland, in the service of a Protestant (and also rather strange) family, Rosina conceals her Jewishness by taking on the assumed name Mary Blackchurch. The father of the household, Charles Cavendish (Tom Wilkinson), is a scientific pioneer preoccupied with discovering a way to stabilize photographic images. His experiments to date have resulted only in an unstable process, which will hold the image for 24 hours.
Rosina takes an immediate interest in Charles's work, initially to escape the dreariness and isolation of estate life in Scotland; then as a means to become romantically involved with him; and ultimately, to get closer to the emerging magic of photography. One evening, while secretly celebrating Passover, Rosina spills saltwater on a photograph and inadvertently discovers the fixation process Charles has been seeking. Now it's possible, she exclaims, to capture the essence of a person; perhaps one can even hold on to the ...
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