A speculative drama looking at the unconventional relationship between the hugely influential Victorian art critic and historian John Ruskin (Greg Wise - TV’s Cranford) and his teenage bride Euphemia ‘Effie’ Gray (Dakota Fanning - The Twilight Saga / Night Moves), she was 19 when they married and he was a decade older, Effie Grey finally reaches the screen after a number of copyright claims, court cases and cancelled release dates, the film, helmed by Richard Laxton (Burton And Taylor) and from a screenplay by Emma Thompson, incidentally the wife of lead Greg Wise, the film dealing with an complex and interesting legal situation which, coincidentally, ends in a fascinating and damaging court case, a definite example of life imitating art. Eyebrows were not particularly raised when Ruskin married the Scottish Effie, taking a much younger wife being much the tradition at the time, and she soon followed him to Venice, where he was working on the book which would eventually become the famous Ruskin three-volume work The Stones Of Venice, published between 1851-53. It is speculated that this was when Effie started to feel neglected, as her husband spent his days studying the architecture and building of the magnificent city, and on a visit to Scotland, five years later after their marriage, with Ruskin and his protegee the pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais (Tom Sturridge - On The Road), the pair fell in love and Effie, encouraged by her friend, author and art historian Lady Elizabeth Eastlake (Emma Thompson), sought the annulment of her marriage since she claimed that Ruskin was impotent and has not consummated their union, leading to a court case which led to quite severe accusations on both sides and some embarrassing revelations which truly scandalised Victorian society, such acrimonious divorces rarely being held so publicly. Its’ a terrific story, with a truly excellent supporting cast, young talent such as Russell Tovey (TV’s Him And Her) being bolstered by a truly fine line-up of seasoned pros, including a welcome return to the screen for Italian star Claudia Cardinale (The Leopard / Once Upon A Time In The West), along with Derek Jacobi (The King’s Speech), David Suchet (forever TV’s Poirot), Robbie Coltrane (forever TV’s Cracker), Julie Walters (the Harry Potter series / Brave) and James Fox (The Remains Of The Day). Shot back in 2012, the film found itself the subject of two separate court cases, from writers Eve Pomerance and Gregory Murphy, both of whom had written scripts on exactly the same subject, the judges ruling in December 2012 and March 2013 to clear Thompson’s script from charges of plagiarism and breach of copyright, but an appeal lodged by Gerard Murphy meant that the film’s intended premiere, at the Mill Valley Film Festival in California in August 2013 was cancelled, Murphy insists the legal case is ‘ongoing’, but the UK at least has a firm release date for this extraordinary and actually very sad story.