I capture the castle

Made to love

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE
Cert. PG
Director: Tim Fywell

As fans of Dodie Smith's charming novel will know, the story of this new film centres around Cassandra Mortmain, a girl on the brink of womanhood. Living with her eccentric family in a crumbling castle in the 1930s, she describes the details of their life in a journal.

Her father, played by the marvellous Bill Nighy, recently of BBC's The State of Play, is the writer of a famous book. But he is suffering from writer's block and as a result the family are completely impoverished. The bohemian stepmother, Topaz, struggles to make ends meet and Cassandra and her beautiful sister, Rose, dream dreams of falling in love with rich and handsome men.

All changes when one day a wealthy American family moves to the neighbourhood. Rose sets her sights on Simon, the oldest son and heir of the family fortune. Simon is smitten and they are soon engaged. However, from there on in things get ever more complicated. In different ways, each character has to grapple with the nature of true love and the right reasons to marry and give oneself physically and emotionally.

The film depicts sensitively the beauty and yet terrible destructive power of romantic love. As Cassandra says, 'love is a murderous thing'. During the course of the film we see the awful truth of these words. People love but are not loved in return, show physical signs of love despite having no feelings and cause each other great hurt and pain.

However, for once in modern cinema, we are shown that wrong actions and unwise choices have consequences. Using others selfishly brings only pain and heartbreak. Nevertheless, the film ends on a note of optimism as the now adult Cassandra, despite being bruised and defeated by 'murderous' love announces: 'I have loved; I love; I will love'.

For all the pain love brings, humans are made to love. When we love wisely and considerately and are loved in return love can be a truly beautiful thing. Sadly, as the film has shown, this sort of love often seems beyond people's reach.

Elisa Beynon

© Evangelicals Now - August 2003
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