Dreamchild (1985)

Overrated

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Although this film is almost impossible to get let alone watch I successfully managed to find it. Being a person who has been researching the relationship between Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell this film does provide an interesting view to what I presume if a fictional representation of an older Alice Liddell travelling to New York and recalling her memories of Lewis Carroll. Alas if you are looking for anything with a direct point or opinion as to what was the relationship between Lewis and Alice then I fear you won't get much. A downfall for this film was adding the fictional character Sally to the story and her useless storyline however it was a pleasure to see Coral Browne play a good role as Alice Liddell and Ian Holm's role was well played. Overall an interesting watch.

A gentle film. Loved starchy elder Alice and mouthy younger one. Ian Holms is, of course, perfect at expressing a range of delicate emotions through relatively few lines.The storyline is unnecessarily complicated by a "modern-day" (1932) love interest. Also, the issues from Alice's past are never actually resolved. They are for her personally, but the viewers are left in the dark. Was there pedophilia going on here, in thought if not in deed? It's extremely uncomfortable to know how to interpret Holms' "adoring" glances when we're not given more of an answer.It would be interesting to see this film re-made today as a Masterpiece Theatre presentation. I know little about the historical people upon whose lives this tale was based, so I viewed this solely as a film standing on its own. MP would bring all the lushness, subtlety, wonder, and poignancy of the film but tie up the ends a bit more and make the overall story more compelling.

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.

"Dreamchild" is a dark yet beautiful tale of an elderly woman haunted by the famous author who adored her as a child. It deals with love and fear, memories and the past, and the final recociliation of the two. Each character is succinctly and sympathetically drawn, from Lucy the young and naieve maid of the elderly Victorian Mrs. Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell), who, on her first visit to America, cannot understand the intense attention given to her because of her connection to Lewis Carroll/Rev. Dodgson. The movie seamlessly shifts from the present (New York during the Despression) to the past (Victorian England at Oxford University). Real fans of Alice in Wonderland may object to this depiction of Wonderland characters in a harsher, angrier light; such as when the 80 year old Mrs. Hargreaves meets the Mad Hatter. The Reverend Dodgson does not stand accused as Michael Jackson or like some members of the clergy today, but Mrs. Hargreaves does ask "My mother destroyed all his letters. Why would she do that?" But the younger Alice, when asked by her mother, "Why on earth would he say that to you?" answers straighforwardly, "Because he loves me, of course." A thought provoking film worth seeing if you can find it.