Instead, Norma’s quest to discover where she came from takes center stage, with Louise being relegated to an adversarial role, frequently baiting Norma into arguments and defying her instructions. The Chaperone begins to lose steam when the women arrive in the city and we realize the film won’t be focused on Louise and her ascent to stardom. “It may look clean, but they don’t know where it’s been.” Louise responds by bursting into laughter, as if she can scarcely believe this woman could be so prudish. “Men don’t like candy that’s been unwrapped,” she warns. Free-spirited Louise enjoys the attention of the handsome young men aboard, leading Norma to caution her about the dangers of perceived impropriety. The train is barely out of Wichita before we begin to see just how different these two women are. But Norma has her own motives for taking a trip to New York: she spent the first few years of her life in an orphanage, and hopes to find the identity of her birth parents. Enter Norma Carlisle ( Downton Abbey‘s Elizabeth McGovern), an unhappily married middle-aged local who immediately recognizes the talent Louise possesses and wants to help nurture that gift. We first meet Brooks ( Haley Lu Richardson) on the cusp of this dream: she’s been accepted to the prestigious Denishawn School of Dance and Related Arts, but her socialite mother (Victoria Hill) is in need of a chaperone to accompany the 16-year-old prodigy to the Big Apple. But before her face was plastered on movie posters, Brooks was a teenage girl from Kansas who dreamed of moving to New York and becoming “the best dancer in the world.” Louise Brooks was an icon of the Jazz Age, a trendsetting star of the silent screen whose bob hairstyle and short skirts became synonymous with the flapper image.
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