Albert Nobbs

The often-trying situations in which women find themselves has been a regular focal point for Rodrigo Garcia, from his first feature, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (1999), through to Mother and Child (2009).

Set in late 19th-century Dublin, cruelly divided by class and economic circumstance, it's an adaptation written by Glenn Close and John Banville of a short story by Irish novelist George Moore, first published in his 1927 collection Celibate Lives.

Close also stars as the reclusive title character, who works as a butler at Morrison's Hotel, a role she first played off-Broadway in French playwright and director Simone Benmussa's theatrical adaptation of the story in 1982 (for which the actress won an Obie Award).

It's clearly a role the 64-year-old has long treasured: credited as a producer on the film, she's been nurturing the project for more than 20 years, and had originally planned to make it with Hungarian director Istvan Szabo before the financing fell through.

It's an affecting tale about sexual identity and people pretending to be other than they are, not only in their everyday dealings but also in ways that go to the very core of their being. It's not by chance that all of the key characters attend an elaborate costume party at the hotel early in the film.

Albert is an innocent, which makes him ready prey for those whose motives aren't always evident, but he's fascinated by people who refuse to play by the rules, in particular the gregarious Hubert (Janet McTeer). Employed to paint the hotel laundry, Hubert ends up sharing the butler's room and becomes his friend. Like Albert, Hubert has a secret but he deals with it differently.

Around them, Garcia's film gathers an upstairs-downstairs ensemble who all prove to be dissemblers of one kind or another, such as the maid Helen (Mia Wasikowska) and handyman Joe (Aaron Johnson), or the doctor (Brendan Gleeson), who seems to understand this world better than most, and the hotel manager (Pauline Clarke), who rules her domain with an iron fist.

Source: Smh.com.au