The Invisible Woman

Ralph Fiennes (Coriolanus) makes his second directorial effort with this adaptation of Claire Tomalin’s award-winning biographical novel on Nelly Ternan, the secret lover of Charles Dickens. Fiennes stars as the infatuated Dickens alongside Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) as Ternan and Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) as Nelly’s mother. 

Nelly, a happily-married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past. Her memories take us back in time to follow the story of her relationship with Dickens, with whom she discovered an exciting but fragile complicity. Dickens - famous, controlling and emotionally isolated within his success - falls for Nelly, who comes from a family of actors. The theatre is a vital arena for Dickens, a man more emotionally coherent on the page or on stage, than in life. As Nelly becomes the focus of Dickens' passion and his muse, for both of them secrecy is the price, and for Nelly a life of "invisibility".

Tomalin's book is adapted for the screen by Abi Morgan, screenwriter of The Iron Lady and Shame.

Less