I hate when the loser men in the lives of women artists take over stories about the women and make the narrative all about the man and not about the artist.

Last night, PBS showed a docudrama — maybe the proper expression would be historical fiction film — of the Bronte sisters, To Walk Invisible.

This was a singularly unsatisfying bit of film. The actresses all played the sisters with deep passion, and you could see the likes of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights exploding from this Charlotte and this Emily. Yet, except for two poems by Emily, and the story that inspired her to write Wuthering Heights, very little of their literature came through. They did not sit down or walk or do anything and discuss the inspiration and evolution of their work. They discussed publication, but they did not discuss the creation. Mostly, the worried about Branwell.

The film opened with Branwell’s disgraceful return to Haworth and closed with his death. In between, the action propelled forward in response to Branwell. Branwell yelled, Branwell abused, Branwell drank, Branwell in all respects behaved like the worst sort of mean drunk for which you could have only flashes of sympathy. Branwell lumbered into each act, tediously taking it all over.

Perhaps that was an accurate sense of their lives, with them trying to live and him mucking up their peace and future. Perhaps the producers assumed the audience had deep enough of a familiarity with the Brontes’ work that we did not need to know about their process of creation and would capture the allusions. Perhaps the producers thought literary discussion would bore the audience. In the end, I loathed Branwell, and I loathed the producers for thinking so little of the sisters’ work that they could not, this film being a realm of fiction itself, bring us into the very conversations of creation in which these women gave meaning to this life.