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The Countess
Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson find love in politically fraught, 1930s Shanghai
Jackson, a blind US diplomat (Fiennes) bumps into Sofia, an exiled Russian countess on the game (Richardson), in a seedy Shanghai nightclub. Both burdened with personal sadness, they form an unlikely friendship. Then she takes a job as the hostess of his new nightclub, The White Countess, in order to support her family of Russian, iron-knickered matriarchal miseries and her cute daughter Katya (Daly.) By the end of the film you'll be sick of hearing that name, which is shouted again and again in dodgy Russian accents. As the two spend time together, we discover why Jackson is such a curmudgeon and why he is emotionally obstructing Sofia as she attempts to get closer to him. They've both lost their spouses. He's lost two children. She's been forced to leave her homeland and everything she knows. He can't see, and she's lost her dignity because of the immoral way she's been forced to earn a living. And the aforementioned matriarchs have the cheek to ostracise her even though she is paying their rent. The imminent Japanese invasion threatens to destroy the little hope they have left. Everyone's having a rotten time. So wouldn't it be lovely if something good were to come out of all this gloom? Yes. But not if it takes 138 minutes of seat-chewingly stilted dialogue. Kazuo Ishiguro wrote this original screenplay, but it has none of the beautifully controlled sexual tension of The Remains Of The Day. Probably because Ruth Prawer Jhabvala made a considerably better job of transferring his novel to the screen. In The White Countess, the two protagonists exist near each other but that's about as hot as the chemistry gets. There's nothing wrong with either performance, although the American and Russian accents respectively do render the whole thing rather more Danielle Steele, Channel 5, Thursday afternoon TV movie than lavish cinematic epic. Richardson is beautiful, vulnerable but not someone you can emotionally invest in. When she is threatened with separation from her beloved Katya near the end of the film, you really don't believe she's that upset about it. And when Jackson finally relents and throws Sofia an emotional bone, it's entirely underwhelming, rather than the huge release of tension it should be. The film does look beautiful. But at times even that gets to be like gorging on marzipan. No amount of smoky harbours, thronging with extras and gaily painted rickshaws can make up for the fact you're not feeling anything. Except that your rear is numb and you'd quite like to go to the toilet, please. Verdict A shame that the final Merchant-Ivory collaboration results in an overlong love story, missing any kind of heart, further marred by some shocking dialect coaching. |
