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I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is a performances centric movie

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This movie from the beginning to the end is just gripping. The music, acting, and story line is thrilling right from the beginning scene. A wonderful introduction scene to a love affair movie. All of the actors are fantastic in this movie. Stephen Dillane and Sophie Marceau are a shining light in this and their character's love affair is so reminiscent of what it's like to meet your soul mate. Stephen's portrayal of Charles Godwin is just so memorizing and plays a man who realizes that he has met his love in a peculiar way. To know that a family can be brought together in such heart rendering circumstances is a lesson to be learned in life. Money doesn't matter. Nothing else matters but love , which is the ultimate life.

Firelight is about: "It's a kind of magic. Firelight makes time stand still. When you put out the lamps and sit in the firelight's glow there aren't any rules any more. You can do what you want, say what you want, be what you want, and when the lamps are lit again, time starts again, and everything you said or did is forgotten. More than forgotten it never happened." 1838 Elisabeth Laurier agrees to bear a child of an anonymous English landowner, and he will in return pay her father's debt, giving up at birth, as agreed, the child. The first businesslike night is followed by the second, being on the dangerous verge to 'like-it' – while the third night is pure and forbidden pleasure. And she can't forget. The following film moments are seven years of the mothers writing of her diary "To my English Daughter." Searching and finally having found her she applies for the advertised governess (the fourth in this year). The upset father has to keep her according English law at least a month. Miss Laurier, confronted with her spoiled, tantrum-throwing daughter, asks the master of sheep breeding, what forms of discipline she may use during the four weeks: "None. She will soon find out the hard world we live in. As long as she is in my care I will that she is happy." But Miss Laurier takes own measures. He, the father entering his house, hears his daughters screams. The servant: "Miss Louisa, being educated" - the films most important saying. The fierce breeders-governess-confrontation compromise that she may resume. Louisa, forced to accept the new governess rule, mocks her: "Servant, servant, servant." And her governess-mother: "I am not a servant, I'm a prisoner. So will you be", telling the girl that after her marriage everything will belong to the husband and she the prisoner. If she doesn't marry, she is locked up in loneliness: "But they can't prison your mind. I want you to read. I want you to have your own life." The biological mother and her biological daughter take the hard way towards a relation of respect and trust both missed at birth according the deal. When the thin communicating ice holds, the film turns to the parents. Their, as remembered, started with the child breeding. Elisabeth has given her daughter rules. Able not only to be loved by her father-boy but others and the father-boy turning to a man. Much appreciated by Louisas grandfather. Louisa's eyes sense that something is between her father and this governess. And then, when discovering them in bed, the child rushes to her comforting lake-house-mother (none, not even the camera is allowed to enter the Lakehouse). The governess her mother, rushes after her: "Louisa, don't leave me." Only after the icy rescue time has come for Louisa to enter the governess room by her own and discovers the diary "To my English Daughter." The governess is her mother. Her real mother who gave her away: "I didn't, I sold you." £ 500 is a fortune: "I am glad it was a lot," the daughters answer. While Elisabeths father could not pay his debts and was in prison ... the reason for the deal between Elisabeth and Louisa's father. For Louisas grandfather and father it was different: a minor matter to sell the country estate. When Louisas father had relieved his wife from her pain (Louisa: "She was never my mother.") and Elisabeth: "You did it." Both have to live with this crime; she who initiated and he who executed. Three days they met. Then. The deal became different. Not meant. Seven years of search that finally ended the 'fourth day' for the father and mother and their daughter. A romantic tale that lets us believe that destiny asks for what is needed. But no: it needs the active moments that has to be taken before the happy ending.

In 1838, Charles Godwin (Stephen Dillane) is an English gentleman sheep farmer with a comatose wife who hires a Swiss woman to have his baby. Godwin crosses the English Channel where Elisabeth Laurier (Sophie Maureau) responds to his ad for a surrogate mother. From the very beginning there's strong chemistry between them, which is partly why he hires her. She needs the money to help her father, who's in prison.Godwin chooses three days to be with Elisabeth, presumably based on some sense of when she'll be fertile, and they meet at a resort hotel on the coast of England. The second night the chemistry between them ignites and -- by the third night -- they're madly in love. However, they dutifully repress their feelings and keep their business bargain. Godwin goes home and leaves her to have the baby.Elisabeth gives birth to a baby girl who's taken from her before she even sees it. Since she's in love with the absent father, it's not hard to imagine what her pregnancy was like, nor the intense deprivation she experiences when both father and baby are lost to her. The scene fades from the image of the ivy growing outside the room where she gave birth to a watercolor painting of ivy, and then uses imagery from Elisabeth's painting/diary to keep track of her growing attachment for her daughter.When the story switches back to Godwin, we're introduced to his father and also to an American sheep farmer who eventually proposes to Elisabeth. Godwin's father is a member of the aristocracy, and a profligate rake and spendthrift who has serial very-public love affairs. We learn that Godwin's wife is comatose after a riding accident that took place shortly after their marriage.Godwin is a complex and intriguing character, and Stephen Dillane plays him to perfection. Dillane is so charismatic in this film that it makes me want to jump through the screen screaming! To my mind, the only performance that rivals Dillane's repressed but smoldering 19th century British-ness is Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.For Dillane's outstanding performance -- and all of the film's outstanding performances -- we have to thank William Nicholson's excellent writing and direction, along with the almost mystical cinematography of Nic Morris. As writer/director, Nicholson exploits the medium of film to do what only film can do, and that's weave a narrative subtext that propels the story through inter-dimensional dreamlike symbolism. The accessible and yet subtle over-riding metaphor of firelight is carried throughout the film starting from the first moment when Godwin and Elisabeth are alone together. Godwin says something like, "I didn't realize that fire cast so much light. Do you mind?" This consideration for Elisabeth's modesty in such an awkward situation sparks the first sympathy between them. From that moment, it gets more and more difficult for them to pretend that they're just there for "business." Unwittingly, Godwin repeats the same sentence when they're alone together seven years later. Firelight and love are synonymous. The subtext about human relationships -- especially relationships between husband and wife, children and parents-- is also explored through the imagery of Elisabeth's desire to "shout," the boathouse in the lake, breeding sheep, the estate, the sister-in-law (another exquisitely convincing performance by Lia Williams), Godwin's father, Elisabeth's family history, etc. Everything in this film is essential to a fully realized three-dimensional portrait of human relationships, and there's nothing extra. The film-making is just plain masterful.And did I mention the costumes?The best films go beyond the capacity of words to convey meaning. Sometimes half- remembered dreams leave us with a wordless understanding that evaporates like steam if we try too hard to explain it. For me, this film goes beyond words to convey meaning in the same way that dreams do. Elisabeth shows up at Godwin's estate seven years after she gives birth to accept a position as governess to their daughter. Her interactions as incognito mother:teacher with beloved spoiled-child Luisa (another fine performance by Dominique Belcourt) are nothing short of poignant. There's a mini-Miracle Worker going on here. The scene were Godwin fights Elisabeth for the key to the schoolroom is incredible.The other aspect that resonates with me personally is what this film says about the plight of women in 19th century Europe and how the exceptional courage and intelligence of one woman who believes in herself can overcome the hardship of circumstances. Women are only fifty percent of the human race but our issues as a "subgroup" of mankind have to take a back seat to all of the other subgroups where males are fighting other males for dominance with the common denominator that they all subjugate women. I love the scene where Elisabeth convinces her daughter that education is the only way out of spiritual prison for a woman. I have always admired Sophie Marceau but she really goes beyond herself in this film, thanks to the exceptional script, direction, cinematography, costumes, and performances of her fellow actors. A beautiful and accomplished actress rises to the occasion of portraying a beautiful and accomplished woman struggling to survive in exceptional circumstances.At first, we're confused about Elisabeth's appearance at Godwin's estate to become governess to his "adopted" daughter. When they met seven years before he had to hide his identity, so we never know if or how she finds out his name. However, Elisabeth eventually confesses that it took her seven years to find him, so we know that the narrative is driven by her desire and intentions. The moment when Godwin asks her if she regrets this is among the best in screen history, in my opinion. Since increasingly films live beyond their time, I have no doubt that someday this masterpiece will be viewed as a major film classic.

I read a review of Firelight that found the principals' relationship as "as cold as Siberia in January." I totally disagree. I found this film mesmerizing. You watch two people jettison the extreme reserve they've put up due to the hard knocks of life & be transported from doing business to lust to love. That is much more interesting than watching gratuitous sex between characters. Much of the evolution of this film takes place in your mind as you watch the subtle interactions between the actors. A look here, a look there - they signal titanic advances in the plot. You won't want to miss a scene.I did find Louisa grating, but I imagine that was the desired effect.