Dreamchild

1985 "He loved the child we will never forget..."
6.6| 1h34m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 04 October 1985 Released
Producted By: Thorn EMI
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Eighty-year-old Alice Hargreaves is about to visit Columbia University to attend a reception in honor of author Lewis Carroll. As a child, Alice had a close friendship with the writer, and their relationship was the creative catalyst for Carroll's most beloved work. However, as Alice reflects on her experiences with the author, she realizes the complexity of their bond has had lasting, deeply felt ramifications.

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Reviews

Diagonaldi Very well executed
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
iwantsofia The relationship between 10-year-old Alice Liddell, the young girl for whom "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" was written, and Rev. Charles Dodgson a.k.a. Lweis Carroll, the book's author, is explored in this thought-provoking film.The former Alice Liddell, now Alice Hargreaves, is invited by Columbia University to give a speech on the centennial of Dodgson's / Carroll's birth. She meets a reporter who becomes her agent and romances her assistant. Meanwhile, she is haunted by childhood memories of her time spent with Mr. Dodgson.A mostly good script by Dennis Potter only disappoints when focusing on the romance. The excellent cast makes up for the few shortcomings. Amelia Shankley debuts as the young Alice Liddell, and gives a fine performance. She later appeared in a three part adaptation of A Little Princess (1986) and Red Riding Hood (1988). Imogen Boorman, who plays older sister Lorina, went on to co-star in Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988).
dcorr123 The central story is excellent. Coral Browne, Amelia Shankley and, of course, Ian Holm are all excellent. Too much time is spent is spent on Alice's assistant, Lucy and reporter Jack Dolan. In my opinion, they're uninteresting and irrelevant. Although many people apparently like the Jim Henson creations for this movie, I find them inferior copies of the Tenniel illustrations and even more poorly "operated". There has been much discussion about the question of Dodgson's feelings for Alice. One thing has been left out of these discussions or perhaps reviewers are not aware of. Even if Dodgson's feelings were sexual, that would not have been regarded as especially inappropriate in Victorian England. The Victorians might have had what we would consider repressed attitudes towards sex, but that did not extend to age differences. The age of legal consent was 12 and men often married girls much younger than themselves. The only real impropriety from the Victorian viewpoint was that Dodgson wasn't considered the social equal of the Liddell family.
jim-1490 This is both a beautiful and disturbing film. Ian Holm (recently playing Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) plays the Reverend Dodgson whom the world better knows as Lewis Carroll. Holm expertly dances on the razor's edge of Dodgson's obsession with the youngest of the three Liddle sisters. This is all experienced in recollections of the elderly Alice as she crosses the Atlantic to attend a 100th Birthday Celebration of Lewis Carroll. As she nears the end of her voyage, her dreams start to bleed into her realities. The Wonderland characters are perfectly grotesque Muppet versions performed by Jim Hemson's Creature Shop (we're not talking Kermit nor Miss Piggy here). This is based on the true people and is lovingly interwoven into a fictional account of the true voyage Alice Liddle Hargraves made to Oxford University in 1932. If you're lucky to have the VHS tape, guard it with your life, mine was destroyed and I can only pray this film will be transfered to DVD. Though we're talking Alice in Wonderland and Muppets, this is not a film for those under 17.
bkus Coral Browne- supported by an excellent cast plays an aged woman who as a child was the author's inspiration for "Alice in Wonderland". We see a picture of the author via her recollections and her reactions in her current day to the memories. A dream of a film as a viewer is taken along by Coral Browne's character through her long ago experiences with insights into Lewsis Carroll. Presents a unique manner of insight into an historical figure. In this case through the eyes of an old woman who was a child when she knew the author. This is both Alice's story and Mr. Carroll's. Enjoyable for anyone who loved "Alice In Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass". May drag for younger children.