IMDb RATING
7.2/10
4.9K
YOUR RATING
A governess agrees to bear a child to help her father.A governess agrees to bear a child to help her father.A governess agrees to bear a child to help her father.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThough he had been in the film industry as a scriptwriter for many years, this was William Nicholson's first directed film.
- GoofsAfter seven years, despite evolving fashions, neither hero nor heroine have made any change in hairdo or style of clothes. Nor do they look a day older.
- Quotes
Elisabeth: Do you know about Firelight?
Louisa: What about it?
Elisabeth: It's a kind of magic. Firelight makes time stand still. When you put out the lamps and sit in the firelight's glow there aren't any rules any more.
[blows out lamp]
Elisabeth: You can do what you want, say what you want, be what you want, and when the lamps are lit again, time starts again, and everything you said or did is forgotten. More than forgotten it never happened.
Featured review
19th century bodice-ripper
This is a wonderful movie about how a woman's love can overcome major obstacles. Sophie Marceau is a beautiful governess, who seven years prior was hired by a rich Englishman to conceive a baby because the man's own wife had been seriously injured but did not die after a riding accident. Marceau's motivation is to pay her father's debts and get him out of prison. Thus the two principal characters are having this weekend "affair" out of a sense of duty to others. Unlike many movies set in the mid-19th century, the rich people in this movie are not one dimensional and heartless, and the poor people are not powerless victims. Marceau manages to track down her child after 6 years and becomes her governess. The girl has become a spoiled brat, and Marceau is the first to teach the girl how to read, and much about life. There is not exactly a happy ending, in the Hollywood sense. In order to get something, one must take risks and be willing to give up other things.
- How long is Firelight?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $785,482
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $135,401
- Sep 7, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $785,482
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