Anticipation.
A veteran British film publicist puts on her producer’s cap.
Enjoyment.
An intriguing tale that’s a little overwhelmed by the music element.
In Retrospect.
A double lottery win for the Emilíana Torrini hardcore.
A slight conflict of interest here, as the producer of Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s The Extraordinary Miss Flower is named Zoe Flower and she is a veteran publicist within the world of film. We at LWLies have worked with her countless times across the last two decades (Hi Zoe!), and as some of you will be aware, it’s hard to be objective when it comes to art made by people you really like.
And in this instance, it’s doubly hard, as the Miss Flower mentioned in the title is not Zoe herself, but her late mother, Geraldine, whose entire persona was posthumously altered upon the discovery of various love letters she received across her life. In a bid for some kind of clarity as to the person she really was (aside from being a stellar mother and companion), the film attempts to piece together and imagine what this woman’s life was really like by reading between the lines of the florid prose missives that were sent to her on a regular basis and by a range of different guys.
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In the spirit of these extrovert scribblings, the film takes the form of a musical celebration, as the Icelandic electro chanteuse, Emilíana Torrini, decides to co-opt these texts and put them to music as part of her new concept album. There are some flighty little skits positing theories about the nature of Geraldine’s secret life, with a few famous friends roped in to intone the lovers’ hand-written proclamations.
Yet the majority of the film is taken up with performance footage of Torrini and interviews with her about her creative methods and how she feels a personal bond with the alluring recipient of these letters. It’s a creative and admirably earnest endeavour, but one that will most certainly live or die on your tolerance for Torrini’s winsome warbling.
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