The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Dragonwyck
Drama · Romance · Thriller · 1946
A simple Connecticut farm girl is recruited by a distant relative, an aristocratic patroon, to be governess to his young daughter in his Hudson Valley mansion.
Movie details
Dragonwyck
“Secret thoughts... That led to secret love... That led to rapture and terror!”
1946 Drama · Romance · Thriller 1h 43m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.6 / 10
Community rating
A simple Connecticut farm girl is recruited by a distant relative, an aristocratic patroon, to be governess to his young daughter in his Hudson Valley mansion.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Dragonwyck?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a hardworking young sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.
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The Lost Husband
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Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.
Firelight
Romance · 1998
In 1838, lovely governess Elisabeth Laurier agrees to bear a child of an anonymous English landowner, and he will in return pay her father's debt. At birth, she, as agreed, gives up the child. Seven years later, she is hired as governess to a girl on a remote Sussex estate. The girl's father, Charles Godwin, turns out to be that anonymous landowner. So Elisabeth has to be her own daughter's governess, and she can't reveal the secret of her tie with little Louisa.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Gene Tierney
Miranda Wells
Walter Huston
Ephraim Wells
Vincent Price
Nicholas Van Ryn
Glenn Langan
Dr. Jeff Turner
Anne Revere
Abigail Wells
Spring Byington
Magda
Connie Marshall
Katrine Van Ryn
Court is in session
Put Dragonwyck on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.