sometimes i find 19th century british costume dramas a little hard to relate to .
it 's not the time or the distance , it 's the rules and conventions of a social class that deserves resentment rather than sympathy .
yet somehow , the movies are all well made
and i always get caught up in the story .
the wings of the dove fits the pattern .
kate ( helena bonham carter ) and merton ( linus roache ) are in love .
merton , a newspaper writer , would like to marry kate .
but kate 's " job " , if you will , is to be a member of the british upper class .
her father lost all of her family 's money , but a wealthy aunt agreed to take care of her until she married a nice rich man .
naturally , a newspaper writer 's wages do n't count as " rich .
" kate leads him on , but she always ends up giving him the cold shoulder , ultimately because he 's not marriageable .
kate 's american friend millie ( alison elliot ) stops in for a visit on her way to venice .
at a party , millie catches a glimpse of merton and likes what she sees .
kate realizes that if merton were introduced to millie , he might forget about her .
it appears that she is trying to spare him from the heartbreak of their inevitable breakup .
merton sees what kate is doing and resents her for it .
he is still in love with kate , and will accept no substitute .
the three of them , along with a fourth friend ( elizabeth mcgovern ) end up on holiday in venice together , where their interactions are quite complicated .
let 's sum up : millie has fallen for merton .
merton has no feelings for millie because he is still in love with kate .
kate loves him but ca n't marry him , so on the one hand she 's trying to match him up with someone who will make him happy , but on the other hand she 's jealous of them as a couple .
a clear solution presents itself to kate when she realizes that millie is very sick - dying , in fact .
at this point she decides that merton should marry millie until she dies .
millie will leave her money to merton , who will then be rich enough to marry kate .
she lets merton know of her schemes and , since it will help him win kate , he reluctantly agrees .
kate leaves venice so that the two m 's can be alone together .
merton finds that pretending to love millie is a lot like actually loving her .
he 's not sure he can separate the two .
kate finds that she 's not so sure she really wants her merton falling in love with and marrying anyone else .
the brilliant scheme proves to be painful to all involved .
without revealing the details , suffice it to say that the situation ends badly .
the title refers to the object of merton 's vain hope that something might lift him from his predicament .
one is left with feelings of regret and despair .
what started as such a promising relationship was damaged by greed , anger , and jealousy .
an interesting thought struck me after the movie was over , and that is that the wings of the dove almost fits the story line of a film noir .
a couple conspires to cheat someone out of their money so they can live happily ever after .
their involvement in the deception makes each less attractive to the other , and after a few things go wrong , the whole idea seems like an awful life - ruining mistake .
i would n't call the wings of the dove a film noir , but the comparison is interesting .
as i have acknowledged before , i am not a wonderful judge of acting , but
i liked the performances from roache and elliot .
roache successfully conveyed his character 's ambivalence toward millie : near the end , he hugs her , at first staring into space , as if he 's thinking about his plan with kate , then giving that up to fully embrace millie .
millie 's part did n't require as much range , but elliot gave her the necessary bubbly personality that made her irresistible .
i will probably file away the wings of the dove in the same low - traffic corner of my mind as sense and sensibility and persuasion .
their settings are far removed from my personal experience - geographically , historically , and socially .
still , the movies are well made and the stories inevitably win me over .
successfully conveyed yet somehow , the movies are all well made and i always get caught up in the story inevitably win me over gave her the necessary bubbly personality that made her irresistible i liked the performances well made