The Governess (1998) from Tuna and Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Tuna's comments in white:

The Governess (1998) was a film that I enjoyed more the second time I watched it.

Minnie Driver plays a young Jewess whose father dies, leaving the family hurting financially. Pretending to be a Christian, she takes a job as a governess to a Scottish family. The father of the family is a scientist trying to discover the secret of "fixation" to make photos last more than a day. Minnie not only seduces him, but discovers the secret of fixation and becomes a master photographer. Of course, the father takes all the credit.

Portions of the film are beautifully shot, and on second watching, I think it was more that imagery that impressed me, because I remembered the story.

Scoop's notes in yellow:

• It is good to see a film come along now and again which targets people with more than room temperature IQ's. While this film occasionally wandered off in a precious direction, it is an intelligent and thought-provoking effort. How many of those are there?
• I enjoyed the male/female take on the photographic process the father and the governess were developing together. She saw it as an inchoate art form, and as a way to capture memories and emotions. He saw it as a way to chronicle scientific experiments.
• Tom Wilkinson, the father in this film, was finally nominated for an Oscar in 2001 for In the Bedroom. Although that was actually one of his least inspired roles, it was certainly gratifying to see Hollywood finally recognize one of the hardest workers and one of the most dependable actors in the English-speaking world.
• Minnie Driver showed great promise in this film, and demonstrated that she was capable of far more than her usual role as the designated girlfriend. Unfortunately, we never saw that seed come to fruition in the subsequent years. 

• I really liked the parts of the film that concentrated on the relationship between the governess (Driver) and the father of the family (Wilkinson). The slow development of their sexual tension was erotic. The father was fighting his attraction to a younger woman who was not only beautiful and his intellectual match, but who genuinely wanted him. We could see what he could not - that his resistance was a losing effort.
• Unfortunately, there was also a sub-plot about her relationship with the son, and this part irritated the hell out of me. It was completely over-the-top in that special way that only sexually hysterical pubescent Victorians could be. Imagine Wuthering Heights times five.