Review: Albert Nobbs (15)

She has no inkling how accurate is her comment, or for how long Albert has been living a lie while nursing a fantasy.

In other hands Albert Nobbs would be a lumpen “message movie” about female emancipation and the daring nature of 19th century lesbians. In actuality it is a boldly underplayed drama in which Close and Janet McTeer bring plausibility to the cause of women who, for a variety of reasons, chose to live their lives as men.

Long disguised as a man to earn a crust in 1880s Dublin, Albert affects a voice, gait and personality to achieve her goals. But the chink in her armour is her isolation and loneliness.

Rodrigo García has crafted a delicious, gentle tale that is also a very personal story.The impressive ensemble cast – including Pauline Collins, Brendan Gleeson, Brenda Fricker, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Bronagh Gallagher – brings to life a fascinating period soaked in Catholic prejudice, Upstairs-Downstairs snobbery and typhus, but the movie belongs to Close and the statuesque McTeer. One longs for freedom to be herself. The other has accepted a lie lived in plain sight.

Fault lines appear around Wasikowska and Aaron Johnson as the conniving couple looking to prey on Albert’s decency and generosity, and around Close herself, who always looks like a plain woman in male attire. The 6ft 1ins McTeer, however, enjoys the picture’s best moment – a scene of triumphal revelation that is both droll and powerfully assertive.