"Albert Nobbs" Suffers From Glenn Close's Unmoving Prosthetics

Fulfilling a mission that has consumed her for almost two decades, Glenn Close — as producer, cowriter, and lead — brings to the screen the titular character, a woman who passes as a man in 1890s Ireland. The result of this passion project? Getting to look like Bruce Jenner in...

By Melissa Anderson

January 26, 2012

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Fulfilling a mission that has consumed her for almost two decades, Glenn Close — as producer, cowriter, and lead — brings to the screen the titular character, a woman who passes as a man in 1890s Ireland. The result of this passion project? Getting to look like Bruce Jenner in a bowler and high starched collar. Close's prosthetic makeup renders her face too immobile, a marked contrast with her unfixed accent. It's a shame, because the material — based on a novella by George Moore published in the 1927 collection Celibate Lives — deserves better.

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Melissa Anderson is the senior film critic at the Village Voice, for which she first began writing in 2000. Her work also appears in the publications of the Voice’s film partner, Voice Media Group: LA Weekly, Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Miami New Times, Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Houston Press and Dallas Observer.