“Think of me as a visitor from another planet.”
As someone with a great fondness for the novels of H.G Wells, I was delighted to discover that DVD existed of The History of Mr. Polly. Unfortunately the film turned out to be a disappointment; it’s a good-natured venture, but it fails to do justice to the complexities of the novel or to the character of Mr. Polly.
Directed by Gillies MacKinnon, this made-for-British-television production stars comedian Lee Evans (Mousetrap) as Mr. Polly. The premise of the film, a condensed version of the novel, is simple; Mr. Polly inherits 300 pounds from his father, and at the funeral he meets his cousin, Miriam (Anne-Marie Duff). Although Polly has a brief romantic adventure with an upper-class girl, his crushing disappointment when he discovers that he’s an object of ridicule causes him to rush headlong into marriage with Miriam. He purchases a failing business in the small seaside town of Fishbourne, but in this life of mediocrity, he soon becomes mired in boredom. Restless, he breaks free of his chains of conformity and establishes a new life.
The novel spends a great deal of time on Polly’s youth–not so the film. Whereas the novel contrasts Polly’s youthful enthusiasm and aspirations with the adult reality, the film version almost skips Polly’s youth entirely, and this is unfortunate, as we don’t see the gradual hammering down of Polly’s personality into acceptable norms of conformity. The novel emphasizes that Polly’s inadequate education leaves him with a smattering of knowledge that’s largely manifested in useless facts and figures and some peculiar language. Also in the novel, a significant event occurs when Polly witnesses a rebellion by a fellow apprentice, and in spite of Polly’s lack of opportunities and sad excuse for an education, he maintains a love of books–this is a love that contributes to his eventual salvation. The fictional Polly is a man who manages a rebellion in spite of a poor education, in spite of decades of conformity, and in spite of societal pressures. All of these elements are absent in the film version, and consequently, Polly is portrayed as a rather flat, ordinary character who leaves an unhappy sour marriage. The film also presents Polly as a comic figure. While Polly is genial, he was not depicted in the novel with the vacancy he shows in the film. I think that Lee Evans is a lot of fun in the right role, but his casting here is a mistake. Perhaps if I didn’t love the novel, I wouldn’t feel this sense of disappointment at the film version’s slight treatment of this great character.
The film does succeed on some levels, however. For example, there’s one scene when Miriam serves dinner. Polly looks at his plate, and we can almost feel the walls moving in on him. Unfortunately, we never get the full sense of exactly how much Polly has had to conform to societal expectations because the film version simply leaves out so much of this character’s genesis. It’s the typical simplification down into the film format. This version runs 93 minutes–short shrift for this novel.
