How others will see it. Most people will like this film. For women, this is a movie with everything: romance, suspence, mystery, period costumes, excellent cinematography, and a dashing male lead. Some distasteful scenes may turn off the prudes. Since there is little action, and not much female nudity, there is less here for men. But, a good, well-made movie will also appeal to men whose ideal film is closer to Casablanca than Grand Theft Auto.
How I felt about it. This film has several interesting characters. The lead, Rylance, is a courteous man, but his eyes burn with ambition. He doesn't want power, or money, but he does want love, and he wants to understand the animal world, especially its instinct-driven bugs. He believes he sees the world as it is, yet he cannot understand the motives and secrets of the two women in his life: Eugenia, his sensitive wife, and Matty, his Spock-like assistant. As it turns out, Eugenia is not the meek feminine angel he believes her to be. She is a sex addict who covets Adamson only for his body. Matty, whom he believes to be dutiful and unemotional, is secretly entranced with him and his work. She also sees him as the means of escape from her peaceful but dull gilded cage.
The wife, Eugenia, is less interesting than her brother Edgar. He believes that class is everything, and because he is upper class, that gives him license to do anything he pleases. He certainly doesn't want to work. He is the exact opposite of Adamson, a learned and thoughtful working-class scientist. Yet Edgar is more satisfied with his life, since his accomplishments, in the form of sexual encounters, are to him as wonderful as Adamson's joy at discovering a new species of insect.
Perhaps the saddest character isn't Eugenia, who gets a lot of what she likes best, but her father, Sir Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), the family patriach who toils over his naturalist book without having the insight or organization to complete it, much less make it worthy of publication. Meanwhile, his sole hope, of using Adamson's abilities to salvage the project, is circumvented by Matty, who has her own patient agenda regarding Adamson. He is not to be the family's savior, because his capacity to build is less than Edgar's capacity to destroy.