Review: The Last of Robin Hood
By the time Errol Flynn met Beverly Aadland in 1957, his glory days as he swashbuckling Robin Hood were well behind him. He was still famous though his star had been somewhat dimmed by a 1942 scandal wherein he was accused of statutory rape by two underage girls. He was acquitted but the wall-to-wall coverage took the luster off his romantic leading man image. He was still a notorious womaniser and thought nothing of sending costume designer Orry-Kelly to fetch the latest blond to catch his eye.
That blond was Beverly (Dakota Fanning), barely in her late teens and already a showbiz veteran, having been a Pears Soap baby and winning a talent contest at the age of three by doing a Bette Davis impersonation. Trained to be polite and groomed to look older than her years by her mother Florence (Susan Sarandon), she hadn't made much of an impact in Hollywood despite billing herself as a triple threat (actress, singer, dancer). She was cast as a chorus girl in Gene Kelly's Marjorie Morningstar when Flynn (Kevin Kline) invited her at a friend's estate, where he was staying, to audition for a part in a play. The audition was a ruse, of course, and the night ends with Flynn taking her virginity and a shellshocked Beverly giving nothing away to her mother. Flynn apologises though she counters, "What's the point? You got what you wanted." Yet there was an undeniable connection between the two. He was 48, she was 15.
The Last of Robin Hood assesses the illicit romance from three perspectives: Flynn's last chance at love, Beverly's genuine affection combined with career ambition, and Florence's perhaps willful blindness to what was going on between the two. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland allow for different interpretations of the characters. Florence could have easily been vilified as a monstrous stage mother, vicariously living through her daughter. She's opportunistic at all the wrong moments, but there's also a sense that life has passed her by (an aspiring dancer, she lost a leg as a result of her husband driving drunk) and she doesn't want that to be the case for Beverly. Still, it's difficult to believe that she thought things between Flynn and Beverly were nothing more than platonic. "Mothers see what mothers want to see," Flynn observes.
Beverly looked to Flynn as a refuge from the grind of show business - she likens herself to a wind-up toy - but she is no angel as evidenced by the steeliness and knowing in Fanning's eyes. Beverly is very much someone who knows how to get what she wants. Why shouldn't she be traveling the world with Flynn and experiencing the excitement and, yes, the advantages afforded by his celebrity? After all, as she points out when Florence refuses to let her go to Africa by herself to appear in Flynn's latest movie, "I'm really amazed you'd want me to pass up an opportunity like this. It goes against everything you've ever taught me."
As for the self-described devil incarnate himself, Flynn was never one to tread carefully in life. When his young driver reveals to him Beverly's true age (Flynn had thought her to be 18), Flynn is amused but also melancholy and resigned to the nature of his impulses. "I am the most selfish man in the world. All my life, I've done what the hell I wanted, and to hell with the consequences," he admits. Kline is about as perfect a Flynn as anyone could hope for, showing both the gentleman and degenerate sides of the self-deprecating Tasmanian devil. (Interestingly, Kline has portrayed both actors most associated with Robin Hood - Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., whom he played in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin.)
The filmmakers' treatment of this real-life Lolita tale possesses an admirable lack of salaciousness, though the film's detractors will highlight this as its main problem. However, why should it be luridly told? It's not an acceptable romance, that is for certain, but it doesn't necessarily follow that Flynn and Beverly's tale should be steeped in the sordid. Nor does it follow that, by presenting a sympathetic view of their story, statutory rape is being endorsed or excused. Sometimes connections defy convention, but not all should be castigated by default.
The Last of Robin Hood
Directed by: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Written by: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Dakota Fanning, Max Casella, Matt Kane, Patrick St. Esprit, Bryan Batt
