The Rainbow - Region 2 DVD

Her soul infused with infinite longing by the sight of a rainbow as a child, Ursula Brangwen grows up restless at the prescribed roles set out for women in Victorian England, which are stoically endured by her mother (Glenda Jackson, who played Ursula's sister Gudrun in Women in Love). She idealises her swimming instructor--the older, more experienced Winifred (Amanda Donohoe) with whom she enjoys a passionate, borderline lesbian relationship. She becomes a schoolteacher against her parents' wishes, and takes up with Paul McGann, who is somewhat tepid as a Boer War officer. Ultimately, however, she finds all of these limitations too constraining and finally strikes out on her own in search of true spiritual and sexual freedom.

On the DVD: This is a full-screen version of the film, ratio 4:3. The sound quality is fine as is the colour and sharpness, though like the film itself, not quite as ravishing as you might hope. Special features consist of a routine trailer ("She played by her passion, not by their rules") and disappointingly perfunctory "filmographies" of the director and cast: merely lists of their previous movies. --David Stubbs