"Lizzie" was a film with an agenda. It takes the historical incident of the brutal murders of Andrew and Abby Borden and the acquittal of Lizzie Borden at the trial, and seeks to turn a Gilded Age tabloid drama into a statement about today's MeToo movement.
In the bonus track of the DVD, the screenwriter described the story of Lizzie Borden as that of "someone I could relate to" and that Lizzie is a "proto-feminist icon." In addition to struggling to invest the narrative with contemporary social relevance, the filmmakers play loose with the vague story of the Borden family's maid, who, in the film, begins a romantic intrigue with Lizzie that leads to complicity in murder. For the screenwriter, the relationship of Lizzie and the maid, Bridget Sullivan, becomes "the primary focus of the film."
With so much fiddling with the historical record of the Borden story, the film loses track of the principal relationship of Lizzie Borden and her father. The filmmakers turned Andrew Borden into a villain of the most despicable variety, not merely controlling Lizzie's life, but treating her so sadistically that we have a ready-made motive for homicide. The screenwriter believed that Lizzie felt "trapped." But so did millions of other American women, who would not even the win the right to vote until 1920 and did not murder their fathers with an axe.
We know a great deal about the Gilded Age nightmare of the Borden murders in River Fall, Massachusetts on August 4, 1892, due especially to the trial transcripts. It is fascinating that the all-male jury took only ninety minutes to acquit Lizzie of the charges of murder, based upon her social standing and nineteenth-century ideals of domesticity.
The bonus segment of the DVD suggested that this film was the personal project of Chloë Sevigny, who produced the film and played the role of Lizzie Borden. While she may have overreached in trying to fit Victorian morality into the world of the twenty-first century, she nonetheless produced an extremely watchable and compelling film.
In the bonus track of the DVD, the screenwriter described the story of Lizzie Borden as that of "someone I could relate to" and that Lizzie is a "proto-feminist icon." In addition to struggling to invest the narrative with contemporary social relevance, the filmmakers play loose with the vague story of the Borden family's maid, who, in the film, begins a romantic intrigue with Lizzie that leads to complicity in murder. For the screenwriter, the relationship of Lizzie and the maid, Bridget Sullivan, becomes "the primary focus of the film."
With so much fiddling with the historical record of the Borden story, the film loses track of the principal relationship of Lizzie Borden and her father. The filmmakers turned Andrew Borden into a villain of the most despicable variety, not merely controlling Lizzie's life, but treating her so sadistically that we have a ready-made motive for homicide. The screenwriter believed that Lizzie felt "trapped." But so did millions of other American women, who would not even the win the right to vote until 1920 and did not murder their fathers with an axe.
We know a great deal about the Gilded Age nightmare of the Borden murders in River Fall, Massachusetts on August 4, 1892, due especially to the trial transcripts. It is fascinating that the all-male jury took only ninety minutes to acquit Lizzie of the charges of murder, based upon her social standing and nineteenth-century ideals of domesticity.
The bonus segment of the DVD suggested that this film was the personal project of Chloë Sevigny, who produced the film and played the role of Lizzie Borden. While she may have overreached in trying to fit Victorian morality into the world of the twenty-first century, she nonetheless produced an extremely watchable and compelling film.