“Now, Voyager” has all the drama and bizarre plot twists of a modern soap opera. It’s a story about coming out of your shell, but the scenario it places this trapped character in is absurd, and her ultimate transformation seems to flatly suggest that all you need to blossom is a beautified makeover.
Irving Rapper’s film stars Bette Davis in her sixth of 11 Oscar nominated roles, and she’s accurate casting because she probably has the saddest, heaviest eyes in all of Old Hollywood. But she starts the film dressed in a frumpy gown and haircut with giant glasses and a beyond timid personality. She looks like she’s wearing the outfit “Psycho’s” Mrs. Bates died in, and the overall performance is based on her transformation into looking the way Bette Davis is supposed to.
Her name is Charlotte Vale, a wealthy daughter in a prestigious family in Boston who is completely under the thumb of her mother (Gladys Cooper). Charlotte is the “ugly duckling” of the family, and Mrs. Vale gets her kicks by controlling Charlotte and keeping her unglamorous and without personality, despite she being strong as an ox and not really needing Charlotte around.
At the behest of a psychiatrist (Claude Rains), Charlotte is moved to a sanitarium and is later diagnosed to take a cruise, meet people and show off her new, unfrumpy look. She travels to Rio de Janiero (add this to the list of films obligated to show the Christ statue when traveling there) and meets Jerry (Paul Henreid), who falls in love with her almost out of pity. He’s married and has a daughter, but it turns out his wife is shrill and awful too and never wanted their daughter, so Jerry relates to Charlotte’s feelings of rejection. They have an affair and Charlotte then takes that energy back to face her mother.
“Now, Voyager” has aged horribly because Charlotte’s relationship with her mother makes next to no sense. At one point Mrs. Vale threatens to cut off Charlotte’s “allowance” if she doesn’t put on “sensible clothes” and stop acting so sunny. It’s a plot that would make more sense if Charlotte were 18, not 30, and at this age Mrs. Vale’s sense of authority just seems sadistic.
And yet Charlotte is so easily petrified and embarrassed when she first meets Jerry. Her emotions are set off with a feather touch, and later her way of acting out is awfully tame. Wow, she set a fire in the house’s fireplace! What a rebel!
It doesn’t help that all of Charlotte’s love interests, including Henreid, are fairly wooden, and they’re carried through ridiculous set pieces like a car crashing off a cliff in Rio. Their chemistry is nonexistent and the film feels almost exploitative in the way it tests the waters of their relationship by introducing Jerry’s equally frumpy looking daughter later on.
Often its the screwball comedies that feel more dated and haphazard than the dramas, which can at least thrive on the performances or visual charm, but “Now, Voyager” doesn’t have enough of either.
yeah its an old soap, but its well acted.