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Small Island: A Cumberbatch Review

“How doth thee love me? Let me count the ways your eyes express.” Bernard is so achingly soft and needy, one of the biggest reasons I love Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor. These things are always played Bendy-well and I am Cumbered-centric. Bernard loves me. He needs me. He’s every nervous twitch and tremble, a sugary lollipop lick in the fantasy life of an alpha female. I’m waiting for Bernard to swoon to the floor for me, but he never does. Sigh. He’s then Tiejens, a stiff-necked, long-suffering and repressed, pale-eyed Britishman. Then he’s Turing, leaving you wondering. Perhaps, after Bernard proposes and marries Queenie, he knows he can’t give her what she longs for. He keenly senses her disquiet. Instead of swooning, he sends himself off to war. Are the British really so polite and repressed, or is that just good, stereotypical fodder for British made movies? All those delightful King Arthurs and Hand Kissing Princes. Bernard kisses gently, prettily, but his rest doesn’t follow. Considerate tigers in bed are preferable, but we never get to see Bernard making soft, animal love to his wife. We do get to see some hot scenes with Queenie and another, though. Reow.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a master at playing the emotional push/pull game, but do I really love Bernard? No. I feel Queenie’s plight. He’s an irrefutably adorable suitor who ultimately doesn’t/can’t/won’t give you an emotionally exciting life (or children) but is certainly quite animated when it comes to bigotry. So what triggers a man to be gentle and caring on one hand, and so angry on the other? The frustration of maintaining social standing? Class, it seems, is always a big motivator for British film (and in real life). Cumberbatch got a bit miffed at the media accusing him of being posh. Like… YOU POSH! Blue collar uppity swear words. Swear-word equivalence for an actor who doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed, and doesn’t like having their personal person taken in a false way. Honesty can be so sexy sometimes. I have fantasy softness for Benedict Cumberbatch, my master and my slave. Fantasy bedroom boyfriends, like he, are double-duty nice. You can imagine them any way you want, and you don’t have to put up with any dream-breaking man-chit as in, churlishly bad moods, assorted mood-killing snap-backs, or any loud, acting-out, wanting to be the center of attention pap.

On the other hand, that’s when the head mistress is needed. There’s always a work around.