An Epic ‘Moll,’ but Where’s the Grit?

Writer-director Pen Densham’s “Moll Flanders” is so loosely inspired by the classic 1722 Daniel Defoe novel that by rights it should be called by another name. Defoe’s doughty heroine led such an incredible life that it would take a miniseries or two to cram it all in.

As it is, Densham’s Moll leads a pretty colorful life, even without taking five husbands, and Densham has treated her story as an epic romantic adventure, gorgeous-looking and accompanied by a rich, soaring score. On its own terms, this carefully crafted, period-perfect “Moll” is rarely less than entertaining, but in its glossy, unabashed heart-tugging it seems old-fashioned alongside the spate of astringent Jane Austen adaptations.

Like the recent “Restoration,” it takes too long to tell its story and opts for romance instead of satire with all its gratifying possibilities. Tone down the sexual candor, and this MGM release could have been made during the golden L.B. Mayer era.

Morgan Freeman’s witty, worldly Hibble swoops down on a London convent to claim a feisty little girl named Flora (gifted newcomer Aisling Corcoran) whom he’s been searching for for nine years. During their ensuing journey, Hibble makes her listen to him read the memoirs of Moll Flanders (Robin Wright). This allows Moll’s story to unfold in a series of flashbacks.

Born in prison to a mother to be hanged for a petty theft, Moll survives a hard, hypocritical convent upbringing, is briefly given shelter by a kindly do-gooder (Brenda Fricker) and winds up in a palatial brothel run by the ruthless Mrs. Allworthy (Stockard Channing). She is rescued by a client, a never-named, intense young painter (John Lynch), who asks her to model for him and who falls in love with her. Much of the film is a sort of “Seventh Heaven” with the lovers struggling to survive in a garret while otherwise basking in a happiness of the kind that never lasts in the movies.

Mrs. Allworthy, made cynical and cruel by all that she has experienced, and Hibble, who in fact has been her major-domo, are more interesting than the young lovers. In fact, it’s too bad more of the movie isn’t about them, especially when they’re played with such crispness and ease by Channing and Freeman, both always such formidable presences.

Lynch’s artist is very, very serious and Wright’s Moll is a grave, patrician beauty of boundless fortitude and nobility of character, which is what Densham clearly intended. What we crave in Moll, however, is a dash of sauciness. And what a wonderful authentic Moll Channing herself could be.

With the unending barrage of soulless, special-effects blockbusters it’s no wonder that at least a segment of the movie-going public has been responding to a new cycle of films from the classic novels--especially those that turn upon sudden and drastic reversals of fortune that so well mirror the uncertainties and insecurities of contemporary life. But the grit, irony and sheer outrageousness that have made “Moll Flanders” the novel so timeless a pleasure are the very qualities too largely lacking in this latest--but surely not the last--film adaptation.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for violence, nudity and sex-related material. Times guidelines: The film deals candidly with prostitution, disease and survival in a harsh society.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Moll Flanders’

Robin Wright: Moll Flanders

Morgan Freeman: Hibble

Stockard Channing: Mrs. Allworthy

John Lynch: Artist

An MGM presentation in association with Spelling Films of a Trilogy Entertainment Group production. Director Pen Densham. Producers John Watson, Richard B. Lewis, Densham. Executive producer Morgan O’Sullivan. Screenplay and screen story by Densham; based on the character from the novel by Daniel Defoe. Cinematographer David Tattersall. Editors Neil Travis and James R. Symons. Costumes Consolata Boyle. Music Mark Mancina. Production designer Caroline Hanania. Art director John Lucas. Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.