GUILTY PLEASURES
UK, 2011, 90 minutes. Colour.
Directed by Julie Moggan.
Guilty Pleasures. Sounds a bit prurient. And it is, but not in the sensual sense – at least not for the viewer. It’s about readers of Mills and Boon novels, who are reading the books for some sensual sense.
Seeing is believing. Here are the stories of three women, one British, one Indian, one Japanese, who are devoted (and I mean DEVOTED) to their Mills and Boon stories. There are interviews with the unlikeliest of Mills and Boon authors, Englishman Roger, whose nom de plume is Gill Sanderson, and a model who has appeared on hundreds of covers and has aspirations for a film career, Stephen Muzzonigro.
What was not expected though, perhaps, it should have been, was being immersed in such a feeling and sense world. As Gill Sanderson notes – he is an older middle-aged man who looks and sounds nothing like Barbara Cartland (though some of the ladies who come to his writing seminars do) – the books present ‘a nicer world than the real one’. He also refers to that ‘magnificently trite’ sentence: ‘I love you’.
There are three case studies.
Shirley is from the north of England. We see her in bed curled up with Mills and Boon, next to her husband, Phil, who likes true crime stories. Shirley is a nice middle aged lady who looks after Phil’s needs (we discover he suffers from depression). She seems a text book case with her loving attention to detail. Phil gets a lot of screen time and presents a striking contrast as an unrelenting macho type. He praises men’s occupations, like mechanics and fixing things, and opines that this is really how men should be. You really don’t want to know his opinion of his first wife and the demands he made on her – his young, presumptuous phase. But, Shirley has been good for him and we finally leave them buying each other Valentine’s Day cards and having a nice meal together.
Phil is really redeemable. Not so, Shumita’s husband in India, who walked out on her five years earlier and is shacked up with someone else. He is that kind of person, unpleasant and self-absorbed. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be interviewed because he elicits instant dislike (or worse) and does not seem to be aware of it. He is into mechanics to as well as advising the director how to take photos. And, believe it or not, Shumita (heavier than she used to be) still wants him back and makes every effort, even buying large, primary coloured bras because... Well, you can guess. This is a hurt woman at her most devoted (and unwilling to do a bit of analysis on her ex-husband), stoked by her reliance on her Mills and Boon reading.
Hiroko from Japan loves the Mills and Boon dance stories and is a devotee of TV Dance shows. Her tolerant husband, who looks after the children, is happy that she spends most of her time at dance lessons and practice – and, with her instructor, she wins the inevitable competition. She is immersed in her SF fantasy – though, relievedly, she starts to come back to the real world after the victory.
If you want to hear the philosophy of the Mills and Boon machine, Roger has plenty to say as he meets readers, conducts his classes, sits in restaurants with his pen poised above his notebook to record stimulating conversational titbits that will become integral to his story.
And Stephen? As Emma Stone says to Ryan Gosling when he takes off his shirt in Crazy, Stupid, Love, ‘You must be photo-shopped’, so Stephen works out, poses on the beach, sails his boat, reflects on Yoga and Eastern hints for Eastern sexual prowess, and shows us several of his photo shoots for the book covers. While Roger prefers to live and be alone (perhaps compensating with his sometimes torrid romances), Stephen finds a partner who, for the moment, seems to be the real thing.
I have never read a Mills and Boon novel, but seen several movie versions. I was amused at the beginning of a Guardian review that I googled across: ‘As I watched George Osborne's slow strangle of the welfare state on Wednesday, I wondered – how many Mills & Boon novels will have been sold by the time he finally winds up? The answer is 1,240, because they sell a copy every three seconds, plus no doubt a few more when the chancellor is speaking.
Along with lipstick, Smarties and almost anything that fits in a handbag, romance fiction, the biggest sector in British paperback publishing, is depression proof. It is probably apocalypse proof too. And, to remind us why, Guilty Pleasures, a feature-length documentary about Mills & Boon, had its world premiere at the London film festival last night.’ (Tanya Gold, October 23rd 2010)
Guilty Pleasures is, of course, a guilty pleasure of a documentary. It is a portrait of pop culture through some case studies. The guilty non-pleasure is trying to remind oneself not to indulge in a colonial kind of looking down on Mills and Boon and readers who enjoy their time immersed in this world.
1. A film about popular culture, romantic novels, the readership, authorship, audiences identifying with characters and situations?
2. The structure of the film: the three stories, the author, the model, the way that they were intercut? Continuity, a sense of drama? Continued interest, audience anticipation of each story?
3. Audiences and Mills and Boon novels, liking them, disliking them, feeling superior to them? A cultural phenomenon? International phenomenon?
4. The portrait of the author, male, his age, his comments about churning out novels and how difficult they are to write, seeing him at work, his life, watching people in the restaurant, taking notes, on the boat, choosing lines from people that he had listened to, asking questions? The issue of antifeminism? The books being nicer than real life? His offering advice, the romantic novels clubs, the women coming to the meetings, the training sessions? Examples of writing?
5. The Japanese story, the wife, her husband and children? The texts about dancing? Her loving dance, her husband not able to fulfil all her demands, the many dance sequences, the television competitions, her dilemma about going into the competition, her partner and training him, his training her, his decision to go with her in the competition? Their winning? Her realising dance was not the centre of her life, having to make sacrifice for her husband? Her husband doing his best, not wanting to be too attractive to other women, his love for the children? His wanting more?
6. The Indian story, the wife, her age, her ample build, reading the books, going to the libraries? Affluence? Her story, love for her husband, his leaving her, his living with another woman for five years, the wife meeting the other woman, making comparisons, buying the bras and their size and colour? The trip with the car, his refusing the cup of coffee? The husband and the portrait of him, leaving, not liking his former wife, the details of the car explained to the director, explaining to her how to photograph him? The wife’s love, hope, resignation?
7. The English story, the marriage, the husband and his first marriage, his superior attitudes towards his wife, patriarchal expectations? The interval between marriages, his loneliness, his suffering from depression, talking, his knowledge of machines, people getting their hands dirty, a man’s man (and the intercut to the model)? His wife, love for her husband, reading the novels, their both reading in bed, on the couch with her husband, cooking, shopping, her care and concern about his illness, both of them buying Valentine’s Day cards, the meal together and kiss?
8. The model, seeing him in action, the variety of covers for the books, in himself, his physique and his explanations, gym and diet, his poses? Modern, Regency period? Having been married, the marriage not working out, his being alone, his talk about inner fire and knowing the right person, the mirror image? His reading the eastern book, the discussions about sexuality? The boat, on the beach, his explanations about himself? Meeting the girl on Facebook, their being together, the spark between them, the detail of his cleaning the house, her reaction? The future?
9. The film as a guilty pleasure for the audience, learning about the readership, and popular culture?
