Her foil to Albert - an essentially one-note role - also serves his undoing. That she has to go through so much pain and humiliation to make a 180 degree turn to cold, ruthless avenger makes her the ultimate heroine.
In Georgina, Helen Mirren has created a character that is deeply suffering, infinitely patient.
And once Georgina's and Michael's clandestine affair is brought to light, needless to say, all hell breaks loose and Greenway sets the stage for his horrific, stomach-turning denouement. He commits acts of intolerable cruelty against anyone who stands in his way - he is the Terror during the French Revolution, the Dictator from every country who has had one who will torture those who give of even a slight resistance. Greenway's Spica becomes so completely menacing his presence overflows the screen. The scenes involving the urgent, dangerous lovemaking between Michael and Georgina are unspeakably intense, even in later scenes when they meet in the kitchen among the ever-present cooks and are getting more comfortable with themselves. It's clear where Peter Greenaway is going to take us, the viewer. And it's this element which attracts Georgina's eye. This man is Michael, the Lover, played by Alan Howard, a man who does not talk but oozes intelligence. That is, until she notices a quiet, intellectual-looking man, reading a book. Among them is the Cook, played by Richard Bohringer, who faithfully serves Spica and his yes-men meal after meal and makes no opinion as they loudly banter about the difference between this dish and that dish - essentially saying nothing worthwhile -, while all the time Georgina silently eats on, almost like a non-entity. These bystanders are the people who work at the restaurant. What it is saying is, we are entering a world of moral and spiritual decay in which Those In Power abuse their positions to the extreme, as the observers only stand by and go on with their business. Employees from the restaurant shortly come and hose the man from the excrement he has been slathered in.
Albert Spica is seen outrageously humiliating a naked man outside the restaurant as the overwhelming stench of decay and the presence of wild dogs linger on. The first scene - as a matter of fact - establishes the entire mood of the film. Taking place at a restaurant in which Albert and Georgina Spica (expertly played by Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren) dine day in, day out, always accompanied by Spica's entourage of yes-men (among them a young Tim Roth), Albert indulges in the excesses of food and berates everyone around him, including his mutely suffering wife. At a symbolic level, this may very well be the "thinly veiled parable against Thatcherism" that many critics have pointed at, and it's not hard to see. Peter Greenaway brought to the screen this visually striking tale of revenge centered on its four characters and in its 124 minutes he pulls out all the stops to make sure he not only dances over the edge of the cliff, but jumps right over and shows us the belly of the beast.
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