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Albert Nobbs is among the majority of men living lives of quiet desperation.

Except that Albert is not a man.

"Albert Nobbs," a movie based on a George Moore novella, is the story of a woman who, in her early teens, takes on the persona of a man to escape oppression and earn a respectable living in 1890s Ireland.

She eventually learns she has traded one kind of oppression for another, self-induced.

We meet Albert in his mid-40s, working as a waiter at an upscale Dublin hotel, fawning on badly behaved upper-class guests and squirreling away tips under the floorboards of his monk-like sleeping cell.

Glenn Close first played Albert in 1982, winning an off-Broadway acting award, and she's been trying to get a movie version made ever since. The result has won her a sixth Oscar nomination.

Albert is a mesmerizing combination of shy dignity and silent terror. He's so buttoned up emotionally, afraid of being found out, he has no life beyond his work and counting his secret savings.

Enter Hubert (Janet McTeer, an Oscar nominee as well), hired to paint a room in the hotel and assigned to share Albert's bed for a night. Exuberant and full of life, Hubert seems the opposite of Albert in every way. Except he also turns out to be a woman who, like Albert, took on a new identity to escape an impossible life of abuse and dependency.

Albert becomes intrigued at Hubert's lifestyle, especially that he's married. Soon Hubert suggests Albert pursue Helen (Mia Wasikowska, "Jane Eyre"), a spirited young maid at the hotel, as a possible wife who could help him toward his dream of opening his own tobacco shop. Helen has eyes for a randy, unstable handyman, Joe (Aaron Johnson, "Kick-Ass"), who pushes her to exploit Albert.

There's a remarkable scene in which Hubert and Albert don dresses and frolic on the beach, feeling free but also learning they've been men too long to feel comfortable any other way. They are trapped into being the selves they have created.

Colombian director Rodrigo García has created a rather humorless, sometimes airless film in which Albert is so withdrawn inward he's almost invisible. It's hard to get emotionally invested in a character this remote. García could also further explore themes of class prejudice, gender injustice, or the naivete of Albert, who knows nothing about pursuing love, let alone feeling it.

But the movie thrives on the contrasting characters Close and McTeer play so well, finding ways to get you invested in the story and feeling quite a lot for these characters after all.

Terrific period detail adds to the pleasure, as does a crack cast of supporting players: Pauline Collins ("Shirley Valentine") as the abusive, immoral hotel proprietor; Brendan Gleeson ("In Bruges") as a tipsy local doctor who rejects class snobbery; Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a bisexual hotel guest; Brenda Fricker ("My Left Foot"); and more.

On first pass, you might think Close has trouble getting past her Oscar-nominated makeup to emotionally flesh out this character. But take a second look, and you'll find an acting class in subtlety. And what McTeer does with hale and hearty Hubert is an equally fascinating piece of work.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com