Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (The)
- Director: James Kent
- Writer: Jane English
CGiii Comment
A lesbian film with quality - at last...they are just a little too rare.
Liberties have been taken with facts and characterisations...
Ms Lister was a bit of a bulldog - here, she is rather pretty.
Beautifully played and shot...let there be more lesbian films of this calibre.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
In nineteenth century Yorkshire wealthy orphan Anne Lister lives with an aunt and uncle, anxious for her to marry well and blissfully - unaware that she is a lesbian. Anne is recording her thoughts and exploits in a coded diary. When her lover Mariana Belcombe makes a marriage of convenience to rich old Charles Lawton she feels betrayed and, although Mariana visits her,the relationship is going nowhere. Helped by old flame Tib she makes a play for innocent Miss Browne but sees she is barking up the wrong tree and diverts herself by renovating the family hall. A drunken Tib almost exposes her secret and scornful mine-owner Christopher Rawson, whose marriage proposal she rejects, tells her that her sexuality is a subject of local gossip....
Cast & Characters
Christine Bottomley as Ann Walker;
Michael Culkin as Charles Lawton;
Mark Tristan Eccles as Butler to Anne Lister;
Susan Lynch as 'Tib' Norcliffe;
Anna Madeley as Mariana Belcombe;
Tina O'Brien as Miss Browne;
Maxine Peake as Anne Lister