It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I find this movie absolutely fascinating on all levels: basic idea, story, acting, imagery, set design, colors, music. It all fits together so well and tells a fascinating, rather sad story of beings, their limits and the way they deal with it in a time period of great changes and discoveries. Set entirely on a beautiful Neo Gothic country estate and its grounds, the plot evolves like a dream. The main character looks amazingly like Abraham Lincoln (the story is set during that president's lifetime but presumably in England). He is a man of reason and science - and of no means. He arrives as a kept intellectual and falls for the beautiful daughter of his benefactor. The attraction is exclusively erotic (the movie can be credited for some explicit sex scenes which are for once not gratuitous but as necessary as they are believable) and rather unexpectedly he finds himself adopted into the family and a permanent resident of Dreamland. Always of an alert disposition he observes - and is in turn observed and manipulated. Dreamland finally turns out to be a nightmare, the true nature of things small and not so small are revealed. The Odyssey continues.

An intelligent and unusual drama, based on a short story by A.S. Byatt. In mid 18th century England, a penniless naturalist who has lost his prized specimens from the Amazon in a shipwreck (I think the movie meant him to be a young Charles Darwin, though an incident where specimens were lost in a shipwreck happened to his colleague Alfred Russell Wallace) gets a job cataloging specimens held by the Alabaster family in their country estate. He will eventually marry their daughter Eugenia (Patsy Kensit), despite the fierce opposition of her brother Edgar. Not long after having children with her, he will discover a terrible secret haunting the family. A cousin of the Alabasters, the bookish Matty (Kristin Scott Thomas) will turn out to be his only friend and ally. At times the movie looks like a strange cross between a film by James Ivory and a film by Peter Greenaway, with the Alabaster women carrying bright colored clothes that suggests different sort of insects. Even if you don't take the entomology references throughout comparing insects with humans very seriously, they are nonetheless fun. And the denouement is terrific.

the ugliness that is revealed in the end of the movie is somewhat predictable. the writers seemed to have given too much away. and at time the film moves quite slowly. definitely not for fans of jerry bruckheimer movies. on the other hand if you have a thing for Darwinian thought, well written prose, and don't mind a bit of nudity, this may just be your thing. The British accents are quite thick and a bit of humor could soften the film up. Did humor exist in Victorian england? It sure doesn't turn up in any of the literature? The movie has some fine acting and adequate directing but the writing borders on poetry. Does anyone actually speak like the Adamson character in this film? Who Knows? 7 out of 10 on a good day. A lazy Sunday morning movie.

(**Some very minor spoilers)An excellent and very accurate adaptation of A.S. Byatt's ("Possession") novella, "Morpho Eugenia", which was published along with her "Conjugal Angel" under the title "Angels and Insects".The story basically takes the traditional "plain governess" story that we are familiar with from countless romances, but especially "Jane Eyre", and subverts it, bringing in modern concepts of sexuality, genetics and incest to what is traditionally a very discreet and modest literary genre. The brilliant young actor Mark Rylance (he's also the Artistic Director of the restored Globe Theatre in London) stars as a mid-19th century naturalist who is forced into a lowly teaching position on a estate, when a tragic turn of events destroys his life's work of insect studies in South America. At the house, is a plain but brilliant young governess (Kristen Scott Thomas) but he overlooks her for the aristocratic daughter of the family (Patsy Kensit), who is traditionally blond and gorgeous. Initially blinded by the erotic quality of their marriage, he is gradually drawn into a web of lies and deception by the corrupt aristocratic family.A few reviewers have commented on the loud and gaudy costumes of the film. Although the designers are taking a few liberties, and clearly want us to associate the costumes with various insects, like bees, in fact they are not as bizarre as first impression would indicate. We often think that 19th century costumes were very grim and dark, but this is largely because we only see them in B&W photos of the period, or the few faded examples that have survived. In fact, the bright fabric dyes of the period WERE very loud and gaudy, and the taste of the time was for big prints, contrasting colors and lots of elaborate fringes, ruffles, etc. (I studied fashion history in design school, and I can vouch for this!) It IS startling, because we have been largely misled by "tasteful" costume dramas, but I found the picture of the 19th century represented here to be fresh and authentic.Since many contemporary domestic films and TV movies have dealt with the theme of incest, it may not strike some viewers as all that shocking or extraordinary, but in the tightly repressed Victorian era, such things would be deeply hidden and repressed, and even more so -- never spoken of, which would guarantee that such things would continue to go on, only in secret.I think whether or not this film (or the novella for that matter) touches you, depends on whether you identify with the idea of the "plain jane" who has to inevitably watch the man she desires reject her and choose the prettiest girl. Since these actions result in tragedy and disaster, and the "plain jane" ends up triumphing and getting her man in the end, "Angels and Insects" is following basic romantic novel tradition, with a few highly original and unusual quirks along the way.I personally enjoyed it very much on this level -- however, there may be people (especially some men) who find this sort of thing mind-numbing, and the few graphic sex scenes will not be enough to keep them from running screaming out of the room. So -- make a judgment call on those grounds, but for the right type of viewer, this is intelligent and interesting film-making.