Dreamchild – 1985 | 94 mins | Drama, Fantasy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Released in 1985, the film Dreamchild, written by the late Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective) and directed by Gavin Millar, is a pseudo realistic portrayal of the ‘real’ Alice in Wonderland. The journey begins as Alice Liddell Hargreaves (Lewis Carroll’s young friend, to whom he dedicated his masterpiece) at the age of 80, travels to New York in 1932 to participate in Columbia University’s celebration of the centenary of the birth of Lewis Carroll.

Old Alice (Corale Brown) is a sour, perfectly mannered (though not entirely polite) Victorian, accompanied by a young orphan named Lucy (Nicola Cowper) whose innocence and hopes are securely entrusted to her elderly charge. Upon arrival in the New World, Alice and Lucy find themselves bombarded by gum-chewing, loudmouth reporters eager for an exclusive. Alice will have none of their vulgarity, however, until she meets young Jack Dolan (Peter Gallagher), an unemployed journalist whose charm and charisma enchant Lucy and lead Alice into a brief (but profitable) stint in media promotion.

Everyone wants to meet (and use) the young girl of Carroll’s delightful stories, which Alice initially resists, until the lure of ‘easy money’ proves to powerful. Deep-seated years of guilt and repressed memories of her childhood begin to surface; at the same time, the gentle Lucy falls for Depression-weary Jack, whose fraudulent nature becomes too-readily apparent. As a young child, Alice Liddell (an exquisite Amelia Shankley), along with sister Lorina and Edith, lives an idyllic life within the high garden walls of Oxford University. Alice’s mother is more than a little dismayed at the attention mathematician Charles Dodgson (Ian Holm) – aka Lewis Carroll – has been giving young Alice as of late.

“He seems to confess a great deal to you, my dear,” She frowns. “Why?”

Alice’s answer is simple, direct, and innocent of any possible misunderstanding.

“Because he loves me, of course.”

Charles Dodgson is a stammering, shy and pious man, given to a great love of whimsical storytelling… and photography. Several key scenes involve young Alice posing for portraits by the lonely don, who worries that his young friend will too soon forget their happy times together when she grows up. Though Alice promises otherwise, her mother has other plans. Old Alice is swept emotionally and surrealistically back and forth in time, in an attempt to reconcile her happy (if somewhat confusing) memories of Dodgson, with her mother’s attempts to stifle the author’s intense affection for Alice.

In a fantasy sequence, old Alice revisits the hookah smoking Caterpillar, to whom she confesses:

“She burnt all his letters to me…why would she do that, unless there was something…wrong…something I can’t bear to think about?”

She finds herself admonished by the old Caterpillar, who forces her to recite:

“You are OLD MRS HARGREAVES!”

The recitation is like a slow-motion dam burst: she realises, perhaps a little late, that she has wasted too much time, forgetting her childhood friend (something she promised Dodgson she’d never do) and suffers guilt over her own self-serving behaviour, ‘using’ the fame he brought her (out of love) for monetary gain. Old Alice is haunted by her memories, some of which she is allowed to revisit, including the macabre Mad Tea Party, which features grotesquely drawn versions of the March Hare and Mad Hatter (supplied by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop); who punish old Alice for forgetting her childhood promise to the author – or for simply disregarding her youth (and his love) all together.

As he leers menacingly, the Mad Hatter hisses: “You stupid, ugly, old half-wit, you should be dead, dead, DEAD.”

Is this Alice punishing herself, or is it Dodgson, returning (as she at first believes) to exact his revenge?

Coming to terms with her past is the only way for Alice to be free: in a soul-baring moment, she confesses her story to Jack, who’s underlying compassion (and real love for Lucy) helps to redeem the trio, and put in words all that Alice wishes to say. At the celebration finale, Alice gives her speech, which is inter-cut with a mortifying moment from her past: maturing Alice, flanked by her sisters and their suitors, is embarrassed by the schoolmaster’s pious, childlike dignity, and makes fun of him as he recites a poem from Alice:

“Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”

Dodgson’s song is an open invitation to her young heart, which she immediately scoffs.

Elder sister Lorina, always compassionate, saves the moment by acknowledging Dodgson’s sincerity and recites the closing poem of the story:

“Then she thought how this same little Alice would, in the after time, be herself a grown woman. And how she would keep, through her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather around her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a wonderful tale, perhaps even with the tale of Wonderland, of long ago. And how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys: remembering her own child life, and the happy summer days.” The poem is a reminder and a kind of punishment; she has not been honest, and not recognised what the author had intended for her: a fact she recognises now, and relates to her audience:

“At the time, I was too young to see the gift whole, to understand what it was, to acknowledge the love that had given it birth…but I see it now, at long, long last. Thank you, Mr. Dodgson, thank you.”

Her mind flutters back to that embarrassing moment and its resolve: little Alice, despite the disapproving stare of her mother, rises and embraces the humbled writer. A paean to innocence and the love so easily lost with it, Dreamchild is a film every parent and child should see: the journey of misunderstandings, that can so easily oppress the imagination and overwhelm the heart, is ultimately the path of love and redemption.

Review© D.J. Hall.