AFFINITY

AFFINITY 2008

         Affinity, based on the mystery romance novel by Sarah Waters, is a well-done melodrama spun from ghost tales, sexual tension, and female rebellion. Director Tim Fywell, known for his work with Masterpiece Theater and other British television programming, maintains period detail in this story of a modern love quandary between two women in Victorian England. In it, Margaret Prior (Anna Madeley) begins visiting Millbanks, a dreary women’s prison, to combat the malaise she feels following her father’s death. There, she meets famed medium Selina Dawes (Zoe Tapper), imprisoned for her client’s murder that she alleges was committed by Peter Quick, an evil, uncontrollable spirit she channelled. As the two women grow closer, their psychic battles with unknown forces increase congruently to the external and internal conflicts that arise, namely warnings from Margaret’s male suitor, and the prison guards that protest her criminal alliance. The physical beauty of the two actresses greatly enhances the sexual tension implicit to this supernatural fantasy. The story maintains an historical relevance to women’s socio-political issues, as it envisions what women’s prisons looked like during the Industrial Age, and it tackles a subject matter, namely séance, that was of major interest to women during the Victorian era. Dark atmospheres and repeated close-ups of the protagonists’ emotionally fraught faces lend Affinity a severity that is borderline sensationalistic. Overall, AffinityTrinie Dalton functions as a witchy soap opera suited to ladies wishing for a light spook. -- (Trinie Dalton /amazon.com)