GetOut Magazine

As 'Mrs. Henderson,' Judy Dench will move you
By CRAIG OUTHIER
GET OUT

British aristocrat Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) has just lost her husband of many years. Staunch and dry-eyed throughout the funeral, Laura takes leave of her chauffeur, hops in rowboat and wades out to the middle of a pond, where she howls in grief and blubbers like a child.

What a surprising scene and, more practically, what a shrewd, touching way of revealing Laura's nature. Directed by Stephen Frears (“The Grifters”) and starring Britain's most venerable actress, “Mrs. Henderson Presents” offers a near-perfect union of performance and concept. Oscar nominee Dench is a timeless talent in a tailor-made role.

As the rowboat scene suggests, Laura — a real-life figure in pre-War England's nudie-show heyday — is a woman who respects illusions. She's amused by her own hidebound snobbish attitudes, and makes a show of seeming more ignorant of life beyond the ivory tower than she really is. (Regarding her finances, she jokes of being forced onto the “milk” line.)

More to the point, she's pressingly bored and in need of a hobby. Touring London's then-seedy Soho district, she finds just right the diversion when she stumbles across an old theater space with shuttered windows and dusty rafters. Laura purchases the theater, rechristens it “The Windmill” and hires blustery stage director Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins), on whom she develops a comically contentious crush.

When the Windmill's first show — an experimental, daylong dance revue — goes bust, Van Damm comes up with another innovation: Nude women, posed like surfaces in a Botticelli painting. “We must have British nipples!” Van Damm rants, ever the connoisseur, before finding the perfect pair attached to comely country girl (“Pride &and Prejudice” up-and-comer Kelly Reilly).

Dench (“Shakespeare in Love”) has enormous fun with this role. Tittering with her gal-pal (Thelma Barlow), schmoozing the government's censorship czar (Christopher Guest) and charitably stuffing a quid into the palm of a no-talent auditionee, Laura revels in her renewed spirit, as do we.

Frears and screenwriter Martin Sherman (“Indian Summer”) have less success enshrining her as a “Rosie the Riveter”-style figure in the war effort — i.e., If our boys can't enjoy a cheap thrill before shipping out, what are they really fighting for? — but Dench is so brilliant, we feel the stir in our breasts, just the same.