In 1892, a rich couple in a small Massachusetts town were the victims of a grisly murder. The prime suspect was their daughter, Lizzie Borden. Since then, her story has crossed the line from media sensation to folklore, retold as children’s rhymes, cheap cable documentaries and even opera. Now she finally receives the cinematic treatment in Craig William Macneill’s murder procedural Lizzie.
There is still doubt about who killed Abby and Andrew Borden — and theories abound. Lizzie takes the known details and creates a speculative narrative around the events surrounding the murder.
I don’t think it’s giving away much to say that Lizzie — as you can suspect from the title — focuses on the most popular and probable suspect. Added to the mix is Bridget Sullivan, the maid who was the only other person known to be on the premises at the time of the killing, and who some argue was the actual murderer. Here we have no Team Lizzie or Team Bridget, but rather Team Lizzie AND Bridget.
Lizzie and Bridget are played by Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, respectively. They support each other well as characters, absorbing each other’s humiliations and indignities until that fateful morning. As portrayed here, the murderers are victims who cling to each other before rising up together — or, arguably, one victim rises and drags the other along with her.
Lizzie has long been a passion project for Sevigny and she gives it her all. As Borden, she treads the line between Victorian propriety and a deep hunger for independence. Underneath, she has a trembling fear that is only quelled by her crime.
Stewart is a pained and vulnerable Bridget. She looks too modern to be a 19th century Irish immigrant, yet she properly slumps into her deferential role of the servant who blends into the background as witness to and victim of the cruelties of the upper class.
Lizzie presents plenty of motives for why Borden presumably killed her father. By the time the deed is done he has earned his fate. His wife is not a sympathetic character, but her death is not as justified as the father’s. It is, however, clearly a release for the murderer (and this is the only point where the movie seems overwrought).
It is quite thrilling when we finally see the murders, which Macneill presents in a bravura 20-minute sequence that weaves the murders as imagined around the known facts of the case.
With its laser focus on Lizzie and Bridget, Lizzie is a muffled biopic. We see little of the world beyond the Bordens’ yard. We understand the dark heroes’ confinement, but it becomes difficult to discern if their situation is an isolated incident or if they react in violence to oppressive times. And the case remains isolated, even during a brief trial sequence, so that the event plays like an embarrassing local incident, rather than a nationwide sensation.
I’m not saying Lizzie needs shots of people in California feverishly buying newspapers, or President Harrison dropping his cigar in disbelief, but the movie, interesting as it is, seems too small for the women and legend it portrays.
