The Chaperone: Film Review

The Chaperone: Film Review

Cast: Haley Lu Richardson, Elizabeth McGovern
Director: Michael Engler

With touches of a script from Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes and adapted from a book by Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone is a classy affair.

Set in 1922, when the teenaged Louise Brooks (Richardson, in another impressive performance) was given the chance to go to dance school in New York, The Chaperone's more the story of McGovern's Norma.

Norma is a Wichita native, who yearns to spread her wings. So when she sees the opportunity to accompany Brooks to the big apple, she seizes on the chance. Along the way, there is rediscovery and also challenges for both.

The Chaperone may tread a familiar path in terms of coming-of-age films and social mores, but what it offers up is a chance to revel in the brevity of Richardson's precocious turn as the sparkling Brooks and stay for the more nuanced subtle journey of McGovern's Norma.

The trouble is the film's more obsessed with Norma's story, than Brooks herself.

It's not that McGovern doesn't deliver in a somewhat starched story, but more that it feels like something aimed at the older crowd, rather than a younger generation steeped in the Downton world.

The period detail is wonderfully evocative, and there's much to admire in the visualisation of the Jazz age, but there's a dialled down feel to The Chaperone which suggests a more buttoned up affair than is narratively worth investing in.

Ultimately, The Chaperone walks you through a period of history and a story, rather than letting you experience it. It's not a fatal flaw, granted, but it is one which stops the familiar tropes from soaring and hitting an emotional level you'd want to be more fully engaged.