The landscape is achingly beautiful and bone-chillingly cold. In an isolated farmhouse in the wilds of upstate New York, married couple Abigail and Dyer begin the New Year of 1856 with – as Abigail resignedly records in her diary – ‘little pride and less hope’.
The farm is struggling and they’re mourning the loss of their young daughter Nellie, who recently died of diphtheria. Instead of drawing them together, their shared grief is driving them apart.
Into this desolate world come two new faces: Finney and Tallie, a slightly richer and more sophisticated couple who move into a nearby farmhouse.
Tallie attracts Abigail’s attention immediately. She holds herself taller and moves more freely than the other countrywomen in the area.
Symbolically, where Abigail and the other women wear their hair tucked up behind their heads, Tallie allows hers to fall free, a mass of gleaming auburn curls tumbling around her shoulders, speaking rebellion louder than any words available to women of the time.
Vanessa Kirby, 33, (pictured) plays flame-haired Tallie, a young and ultimately doomed American woman, in the new film The World To Come which is out in cinemas on Friday
‘Tallie is someone who burns brightly,’ says Vanessa Kirby, who has shed the cut-glass English accent she adopted to play Princess Margaret in The Crown for that of this young and, as we shall find out in the new film The World To Come, ultimately doomed American woman.
‘She thinks beyond the confines, the limitations that hem her in,’ says Vanessa. ‘She’s a life force, and her imagination is way bigger than any traps she might encounter. That’s why we chose red hair for her, because we wanted to show that she’s like a flame.
‘She’s the kind of person who would be achieving loads in modern life. And that gives her a kind of fatalism because she knows she doesn’t belong in the world she lives in, so she knows she’s not long for it in a way. She’s someone who’s going to burn very brightly and then be extinguished.’
The world in which Tallie and Abigail meet was a bleak one for women. They were regarded as little more than chattels of their husbands, denied independence, education or anything that might make for a life of their own.
Vanessa has shed the cut-glass English accent she adopted to play Princess Margaret in The Crown (pictured) and admits she found adopting Tallie’s American accent stressful
‘I couldn’t believe how restrictive these women’s lives were,’ says Vanessa. ‘These were women who couldn’t make any decisions about their lives outside the home: they were owned by their husbands, their bodies were owned by their husbands, their time was owned by their husbands. And the isolation – oh my God, this was a time when you’d have to walk an hour just to see anyone.’
Katherine Waterston, who plays Abigail, agrees. ‘They lived a life so isolating, the only form of entertainment they had were the songs they knew. Perhaps occasionally they might get their hands on a book, but it would be whichever one the travelling salesman or tinker might supply them with.’
She adds that life for Abigail – whose nightly writings in her diary provide a poignant voiceover narrative to the script – was particularly rough. ‘She’s lost her child and she’s leading a gruelling hand-to-mouth kind of life.
Set in the wilds of upstate New York in 1856, Tallie falls for her neighbour Abigail (pictured), which is complicated by that fact that in their society love between women was strictly taboo
She was married to the oldest boy of the family of a neighbouring farm – which is a polite way of saying she was in an arranged marriage. But she has dreams and desires that extend beyond her farm – I found that incredibly moving.’
When quiet Abigail meets the more worldly Tallie, it’s scarcely surprising that love blooms.
‘They have a connection of the soul,’ says Vanessa. ‘It wasn’t like Tallie sees Abigail and says, ‘Ooh, I’ve got to have her!’, it was more like Abigail was saying, ‘Oh my God, you want to get to know my heart?’ It was as if for the first time ever someone was sitting down with her and saying, ‘How are you? What do you love to do? What are your thoughts and feelings?’ For both of them it might have been the first proper connection in their whole life.’
The feelings between Tallie and Abigail are complicated by the fact that, as Vanessa points out, in their society love between women was strictly taboo. ‘It becomes physical but then it becomes almost like, ‘Hold that feeling!’ because in that time there was no permission to do that.’
She admits she found adopting Tallie’s American accent stressful. ‘I was the only British one in the cast and I was thinking, ‘Oh, no! It’ll be obvious I’m not a real American!’ I really had to work at it – some people can pick up accents quickly but I’ve never been that kind of person. It takes me months to get my tongue and my mouth around it.’
Although set in upstate New York, the film was shot in a valley in the Romanian countryside. ‘It was in the middle of nowhere,’ says Vanessa. ‘And I broke my ankle on the first day slipping down some stairs during a scene. I was on crutches for most of the shoot and I had to be wheelbarrowed to the set because I couldn’t walk up the hills. That’s why when you watch the film you’ll see that Tallie sits down a lot – it was because I couldn’t walk!’
The World To Come is in cinemas from Friday.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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