Albert Nobbs: Gender Bender

In a scene from this frustrating, fascinating movie Glenn Close, as Albert, dressed in a blue dress, bonnet and shawl that transforms her arms into wings, runs along a sandy shore. It's a moment of blissful freedom in a life that's both literally and figuratively binding.

And then she falls — leaving nothing for the eye to see but a pile of printed blue fabric.

Oh, Albert! What are we to make of you and your film?

Clearly, sexual identity and gender confusion are on the screen, as is the hopeless plight of the poor in late 19th-century Ireland. But just when the Movie Slut thought this film was sharpening its pencil, the point broke leaving her with an interesting character study of a woman who did what she thought she had to do to survive.

Sometimes a point is superfluous.