Strange inconclusive film

Actually you have the entire plot backwards..this film is about the presumption that becuase Dodgeson cared so greatly for Alice there must be something wrong with him because he was a bachelor and not supposed to care for children or little girls. It has to do with Victorian society and their ridiculous notions that a bachelor couldn't love children the way a father would and that he must be ill. Mrs. Hargreaves nightmares were from the implications and assumptions made by her mother most notibly and only her sister seemed to really understand Dodgeson just cared for Alice as a doting uncle or second father figure.
Try watching it again with that idea in your head and the plot actualy has a resolution at the end.
Dodgeson was suspected of unnatural love for children for decades until it was fianlly revealled that he was a just man who loved children something Victorian society couldn't understand..it wasn't masculine..or whatever.. pshaw!
Had he gotten married and had children of his own no one would have even thought such thoughts but because he was a confirmed bachelor...silly silly silly...

I think that Dodgson loved Alice, but knew it was hopeless and only subtly showed this emotion towards her. He did not molest her; he had several chances, but never did. He was portrayed as a shy and nervous man (good job for Holm) not a child abuser or monster. His love appeared strong enough, though. He stuttered around her and spoke to her in riddles hinting that he did not want her to marry someone else, or that she should be careful in choosing a husband when old enough. The most obvious portrayal of his love, I believe, is when he was staring at her on the water, and she splashed him- -a man loving a girl, she notices, and reacts in an embarrased and childish manner. She apologized, of course; her mother told her to, and she was sorry- -he was a harmless man and she knew he loved her. I believe that he earmarked her for himself. At one point, the old Alice stated that she could always recognize the emotion of love in other people, cut to her recollection of Dodgson telling her to be careful when choosing a husband. As a child she pretended not to understand, she may have had a childish understanding; he was her friend and I don't believe the thought of an old man, as Dodgson was portrayed in comparison to Alice, in love with her would have been pleasant.

Much of the affection shown to her by Dodgson, I believe, Alice repressed or overlooked as a child, and as an adult, she found new meaning in it by the end of the movie. She revisited many of the characters he created for her as an old woman and did feel shame in growing older. She said that she could never be the child that she was, which was true and I would feel the same if I were her. It was ridiculous for them to ask that of her. Perhaps, she never felt that she was Alice in the stories, and she only treated them as stories given as a gift- -if that. She told him when she was a child that they were only stories, this was after he kept asking her if she would always remember them. He put great care into them, yet she did not fully recognize this. This is linked to the touchy acknowledgement of his loving her. She is shown as never treating him as if he meant as much to her as she meant to him, how could she? He wanted more from her, what she could not give as a child- -he knew this, but at times nudged her with questions. In this scene, he kept asking her how she would keep the book that he gave her, wanting her to in some way give him comfort in knowing that she cherished his gift. She ran off to be with her sister and others.

Her mother got rid of his letters to her- -to me, this implies that there was something in them that hinted at his very real love for her. Mother Liddell must have not believed him to be a molester, for she allowed her children to hang around with him, especially Alice, many a day. It is as if Dodgson was a strange person to them, shy, maybe, but endearing and Mrs. Liddell seemed to have respect for him. I read that Alice's mother and Dodgson later had a falling out and Alice saw less of him in her later years b/c of it; what I read implied that the reason of the falling out is that he intended to be a suitor for Alice, but her mother wanted someone more suitable. Alice did marry someone else, had children, and grew old, as she was shown to have done in the movie, and as everyone does. She did go to his centarium, or whatever and met one of the boys (then men) who inspired Peter Pan.

At the end of the movie, her last recollection was of her apologizing to Dodgson after instigating laughter at him. At that time, I believe she was acting out her embarrasment of him, showing off as some kids do. He recited to them a piece of his story for her after she requested him to do so. She and the group (except her sister) began to laugh at him, a foolish old man, speaking nonsense. She knew that she held him in the palm of her hand and that he was doing what he was doing for her. This may have embarrased her and at the same time gave her a feeling of power. She did not recognize that he was truly hurt; she was a young girl playing. She apologized as she did after she splashed him on the water and gave him a kiss. His hand dropped down in a telling gesture. He did love her very much and did things just for her. But she was a child and did not know how to handle this. At the end, she remembers this last occurance, b/c she had finally realized or let herself realize the true emotion that he felt for her. She admired him for this and felt sorry about her treatment of him. She never fully acknowledged his gift until the end of the movie, b/c she finally let herself remember and accept everything at the end of her youth. She couldn't accept it as a child, and not as a young woman, b/c she was married to another man and had to follow a different path. At the end, you can only look back on the past and see things in a whole new light. He immortalized her as a child, the dreamchild that he was in love with; she finally was able to give back to him what she couldn't when she was young. The speech that she gave was for him, but also for the children; however he did write down the story at her request, so I believe it was hers.

Having read a fair amount about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), I would say that the implications of this film are correct: Dodgson was in love with Alice Liddell; he didn't simply love her as a father or an uncle would. He was in love with her, yes, but the love he had for her, although romantic in nature, was also reverent, respectful, and benevolent.

It seems obvious to me that Ian Holm, great actor that he is, fully believes that Dodgson was in love with Alice Liddell, and that he is developing his role to that end. Simply observe the way his Dodgson gazes at Alice many times in the film: he is smitten, adoring, downright worshipful of the girl.

Charles Dodgson was a shy, complicated, brilliant Oxford mathematics don who really only felt comfortable around children, especially girls. There are some biographers who make a good point that Dodgson only liked female children. There is evidence of this in his writings, as he often wrote unflatteringly about boys.

Many of Dodgson's contemporaries found him shy and retiring with adults; but all attest to the fact that when around little girls, he became playful, spirited, and rather childlike himself. He was an undeniably gifted man, and, most importantly, one that best related emotionally to children. He had many friends who were female children, and, in my opinion, he fell in love with one of them, Alice Liddell. Since he related best to children, it follows that when he fell in love, he would fall in love with a child. It is not our right to judge him, since there is no evidence to support any of the later questions as to whether he abused girls in any way. A good biographer will not state his/her beliefs with any conviction on this point. Rather, upon reading about him, one gets a clearer idea of his character, and the strong feeling that he would never abuse anyone. This humane film also does not judge him, to its merit. Rather, it empathizes with him as a man and an artist.

Dodgson was a great writer who gave Alice Liddell the rare gift of his talent. That's what this film is about. Alice finally realizes, in her later years, the full nature of his love for her, and, implicitly, the pain he must have suffered at not being able to fully realize this love by marrying her. Dodgson knew that he would have to let Alice go; he knew that Mrs. Liddell did not see him as a proper match for her daughter, even if Alice had been willing to accept Dodgson when she grew to marrying age.

If you are still in any doubt that Dodgson was in love with Alice, consider the epilogue he wrote in "Through the Looking-Glass", which includes these lines about Alice herself:

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

You missed the entire point of the film. The ending is indeed conclusive. Reverend Charles Dodgson's love for Alice Liddell was pure and free of the taint of anything inappropriate. Alice's "loss of innocence" is simply the result of growing up and accepting a set of conventional attitudes that cause her to question unconditional love.

Reverend Dodgson' gift to Alice - Lewis Carroll's gift to the world - was to preserve a measure of childhood innocence and keep it with us throughout our lives. In adult life, Alice Liddell had lost that gift. It is her near death experience that causes her to re-examine her life, reassess her attitudes, and redirect her life. It is quite literally an epiphany that allows her to accept unconditional love.

Your view of the story is an example of falling into the same trap as Alice Liddell did before she grew wise.


"Ignore the man behind the curtain!"

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[deleted]

Just a quick report of a real-person episode in the life of a friend of mine. Her grandmother was years and years younger than her grandfather. It was said that friends asked the grandfather, when he was a young man, why he hadn't yet married. He said, "I'm going to wait for _____ to grow up". She was three or four at the time. He did wait for her to grow up and he married her, and they went on to have a large family together. There was never any whiff of anything inappropriate between them during that long wait. He obviously really loved her, and wanted to wait for her. It worked for them. So, it really can happen.

Yodi

The film suggests the opposite. That Alice was NOT abused by Dodgson and only now, in old age, can understand and face that he loved her. She recognizes what he felt and how she without realizing it hurt him.

If he had abused her, she would have had some knowledge of Dodgson's inner life.

Alice learns compassion.