ALBERT NOBBS
3 out of 5 stars

i didn’t really know what to make of this movie at first… i mean, it’s a movie about a woman dressing up as a man in 19th century ireland, and trying to marry when in fact, he is biologically a SHE. and they didn’t even have those types of surgeries back in those days! :P

so, who is albert nobbs? HE (glenn close in reverse drag- GREAT actress!) is a shy waiter at morrison’s hotel, who has a major crush on another housemaid named helen dawes (mia wasikowska), but can’t seem to act on his impulses for fear that his secret of being a woman will get out… (and then get THROWN out eventually) he works hard, and has saved up every penny (or irish equiv.) to someday open up a tobacco shop and find himself a wife. however, a house painter by the name of hubert page stirs things up when albert is forced to share his room with him, thanks to hotel micro-manager/owner mrs. baker, and hubert discovers albert’s secret when albert freaks out after discovering a flea on him… of course, albert is even more freaked out that hubert will tell on him, but then hubert shows him that he, in fact, is biologically a woman too! (the look on albert’s face when he sees hubert’s breasts! :O) hubert tells albert all about his wife and his life outside of being a house painter, and albert soon wonders if he could live his life like hubert. of course, there’s another layer to this story… joe mackins (aaron johnson) shows up to morrison’s hotel as a boiler man, and soon wins the heart of helen. he wants to go to america with helen, but with no $... it’s a problem. joe then plots with helen to see if albert can fund their one-way trip, but albert wants to marry helen. oh yeeeeah…and then typhoid fever starts killing everyone. charming times, huh? :P

the acting is quite good, and i wished they would have explored more of albert’s past and what made him decide a man’s lifestyle was better than a woman’s. they touched on it a little bit when albert tells hubert that he was gang raped when he was 14, but i feel like we as the viewers should have been told more about albert’s childhood, his mother, etc. i mean…who was his mother? who was his father? did albert transition to be a male in order to get a job or because he truly thought he was male? i think hubert truly thought he was a male, but i didn’t feel the same way for albert… very odd movie. plus, it was weird seeing jonathan rhys meyers and brendan gleeson in minor roles… :/