In turn of the 20th century Dublin, a butler goes so unnoticed in a luxurious hotel that he is almost nonexistent. Soon it is revealed that the servant is actually a woman who has perpetuating this ruse for over 30 years, but now her secret is threatened to be exposed when it is discovered by a boarding painter. Instead, the painter also turns out to be a woman, inspiring the butler to fulfill her dream of opening to cigar shop and romancing the young and flighty maid! "Albert Nobbs" is an incredulous film from Rodrigo Garcia, a director who masters in soppy material. Not one moment of the film bears any semblance of authenticity and even worse the whole thing is played with a grave solemnity. Glen Close, who was unfortunately nominated for an Oscar after an egregious add campaign, doesn't succeed as a woman playing a man but rather as a woman playing an amorphous creature with no discernible features or characteristics. The likewise unfathomably nominated Janet McTeer also does not succeed as a woman playing a man but rather as a woman playing a screen gnashing lumbering man with breasts whom we are also supposed to take as genuine. Add this to the fact that we are supposed to believe that these two creatures met in 1900 Ireland and that no one around them even questioned them adds even more to the film's massing absurdity. "Albert Nobbs" isn't just a bad movie. It is also an insulting one and even more so in how its makers and stars have passed it off as good.
