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Rating:  - The Passionate Individualist
While I have been an Ayn Rand fan for a short time and have not read Barbara Branden's book, this was one of the first movies about Ayn Rand I picked up. The chemistry between the actors and the charachters they play is excellent and all of the actors, especially Hellen Mirren, are very good in their roles. The script is good and so are the sets and production.
Hellen Mirren won an Emmy for her portayal of Rand and, after seeing this film, one can see why she did. Mirren's portayal of Ayn Rand is superb!
After watching this film, I came away admiring Rand even more. Rand was a wonderful human being, brilliant philosopher, excellent author and passionate about individuals to be free to pursue their own interests. It is understandable for her to be the way she was and believe in the things she did because she grew up in one of the most repressive, collectivist societies in world history: The Soviet Union.
Rand made it a point to live her life according to the individualist values she espoused. Same with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. Thats why they congregated with each other to constantly formulate, practice and discuss Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. However, despite her enemy's crowing, in no way should this movie be considered a 'smear job'.
Essentially, what this movie is about is 2 individuals who end up falling in love (despite the fact they are both married), having sexual relations with the consent of their spouses, form and cultivate a philisophical movement and then it all collapses in the end.
Having extra-marital relations, even when the spouse knows about it, is destructive to everyone involved. In my view, Rand and Nathaniel Branden did not err when they did what they did since they did not hide their love for each other. Their mistake was that they both did not consider the long-term consequences of their actions nor the true feelings of their spouses.
I also appreciated the fact that Nathaniel Branden, whom I met at a conference briefly in 2003 and is a very nice man, owned up to his responsibilties in the matter as well and am glad that in later years, Barbara Branden and Ayn Rand reconciled. However, it is unfortunate that, like Barbara and Ayn, Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand did not forgive and forget.
This move is not an example of how dogmatic Rand allegedly was. Rather, it must serve as an example of what happens when people pursue sexual relations even while they are still married.
Otherwise, despite the negative reviews, this is a very good film and worth checking out. Its a keeper in my DVD library.
Rating:  - Smear job? I found it a (deserving) lionization.
The Passion of Ayn Rand (Christopher Menaul, 1999)
At the time filming for The Passion of Ayn Rand wrapped, I think Eric Stoltz was, perhaps, the luckiest man in the world. He had slept with (or at least simulated sex with) Helen Mirren, Julie Delpy, and Sybil Temchen in the course of making this film. Ah, the sacrifices our finest stars make to bring us top-quality entertainment!
Stoltz plays Nathaniel Branden, a protege of Rand's (Mirren) with whom she has an affair, much to the consternation of her husband Frank (Peter Fonda) and his wife Barbara (Delpy). The movie is based on the memoirs of Barbara Branden. Despite that, however, the film doesn't portray any of its principals as evil; it just shows us the events and allows us to judge for ourselves. Sure, there are overtones that strain credulity (the implication is that Rand needed the affair with Branden in order to finish Atlas Shrugged, and because of that, this is as much a film about the writing of that book as it is anything else), but there's no demonizing of either Rand or Branden. That, more than anything, is what saves this movie. It helps that the plot's interesting and the actors are well-suited to it (Delpy and Stoltz, especially, are always a fine pairing), but it is the treatment of the material that separates this from the pack. A very good movie. *** ½
Rating:  - Dishonest
This film, and the book on which it is based, is filled with so many distortions, speculations, contradictions, and straight-up lies, that it may as well be fiction. For the truth, see "The Passion of Any Rand's Critics" by James S. Valliant. Better still, If you want to know Ayn Rand, read her work.
Rating: - Nothing But A Smear Job
No, Ayn Rand was not perfect, but this film is nothing but a smear job. If you want a better sense of what the woman was about, try the 1998 documentary "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life" or read any of her books. The fact that she was a WOMAN has a great deal to do with the hostility towards her exemplified by slanderous defamations like this movie. Yes "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life" was written and directed by people who actually like what Ayn Rand had to say. So what! It is far more "fair" then this shrill piece of propaganda.
Rating:  - Reason Once More a Slave to Passion
Imagine a small group of would-be moral pioneers, intelligent but confused. With heroic ideals and some ordinary human weaknesses, they try to shape their lives according to half baked notions of reason and independence. Their philosophy raises excessive self assertion to a virtue, and their unrealistic expectations of themselves and each other lead to conflict and emotional breakdown.
It's a well played chamber drama. I don't know how accurate its details are, but Helen Mirren and the others have gathered a lot of deserved praise for their acting. Mirren offers an especially persuasive image of moral certainty, sexual passion, intolerance and a capacity for self deception. She nails the intellectual intensity that attracted so many of Rand's followers.
The picture was shot in Toronto. Interestingly, the real Barbara Branden plays the mother of the bride in the wedding scene. Her description of the movie can be found in a letter published on her website: barbarabranden.com.
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