The Buccaneers (1995) Review
Posted by
Odessa S Brooks
on 9/10/2011
/
Labels:
19th century britlit classics,
bbc,
edith wharton,
england,
period movie,
period romance,
romance,
victorian,
victorian romance,
wharton
Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)My sister and I adore this mini-series which was shown in Masterpiece Theater many years ago. Anyone who enjoys turn-of-the-century films such as The Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, The Golden Bowl, A Room With A View and Howard's End or stories of the Astors and Vanderbilts will find themselves enraptured with this tale of 4 beautiful American women who find themselves being courted by sons of the British nobility.
In the center of the story are Nan (Carla Gugino) and Virginia St. George (Alison Eliott), and their friends Conchita Closson (Mira Sorvino) and Lizzy Elmsworth (Rya Kihlstedt) - four young women living in turn-of-the-century America, when social status and wealth were the most important considerations in a woman's life (these were the days of the Astors and Vanderbilts, after all). Early in the story we find Conchita married to Lord Marable and begins her new life with the English nobility. Spurned in Newport and New York social circles because they are considered "new money," Nan, Virginia and Lizzy travel to England to visit Conchita and hopefully try their luck there. With the help of 2 enterprising older women, they soon become the toast of the town and are courted by many handsome, wealthy young men. Virginia and Lizzy vie for the attentions of Lord Seadown (Mark Tandy) who is not quite what he seems. Nan is pursued by the humble but ambitious Guy Thwaite (Greg Wise from "Sense and Sensibility") and the wealthy and reserved Julius, the Duke of Trevenick (James Frain).
The mini-series offers beautiful scenery and costumes, great acting from members of the cast (including veterans Cherie Lunghi, Jenny Agutter, Michael Kitchen and Rosemary Leach) and a thoroughly engaging story. I loved the fantastic mansions, palaces and castles in Newport and England alike and the wonderful intertwining of the American and British sensibilities in the plot. It has "one foot in America and another foot in England," as Masterpiece Theater narrator Russell Baker aptly explains. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys top-notch romance/drama!
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Deemed nouveau riche and shunned by elitist New York society, sisters Nan and Virginia St. George, along with their friends Lizzy Elmsworth and Conchita Closson (Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino), try their luck in London. The girls' New World spontaneity and impertinence constitute nothing less than a social invasion of Old World society and they soon find themselves courted by a coterie of fascinated admirers. But as the old and new worlds come to clash, something has to give.
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