With a first-class cast, captivating cinematography revealing an accurate and beautiful 1936 Shanghai and a strong track record for producer Ismail Merchant -- who died last May -- director James Ivory and writer Kazuo Ishiguro as a team (1993's "The Remains of the Day"), "The White Countess" was poised for greatness.
Unfortunately, where the film should have honed in on the political tension surrounding the impending World War II threat or, at least paralleled it with the love story, it shifts listlessly between a myriad of subplots -- never fully realizing any of them -- leaving it a watered-down, emotionally null romantic drama.
The story attempts to develop the relationship between Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), a fallen American diplomat who became blind when a bus exploded, killing his daughter (the rest of his family was tragically lost in a separate incident) and Sophia Belinski (Natasha Richardson), a beautiful Russian countess who, with her family, has been forced into living in a Shanghai slum after the Russian Revolution.
Sophia is making a somewhat illicit living as a "call girl" of sorts in the evenings -- much to the dismay of her late husband's aristocratic mother (Lynn Redgrave) -- when she catches the attention of Todd, who is somehow convinced that she is the perfect woman to be the "centerpiece" in the night club he dreams of opening, despite his inability to actually see her.
It is the manifestation of this club -- The White Countess, as it were -- that creates the metaphor for Todd's ghostly existence and inability to maintain respect among his political-minded ex-cohorts. Behind the club's thick doors is a fantasy world filled with beautiful music and booze that he controls. Outside is the much harsher reality of a Japanese invasion and, on a personal level, his own loneliness.
Arguably one of the biggest problems the film faces is that although Richardson and Fiennes give fine performances individually, they simply don't create chemistry together, further exaggerating snail-like pace of the already long movie (it runs a very trying 138 minutes). We're not convinced that Sophia and Todd come together out of passion or simply out of necessity and desperation. By the time they do make a real romantic connection -- at this point, years have gone by -- it has become so predictable that you no longer care..
The larger frustration is that the potential for a historical epic drama is there, but opting to mold it as love story -- and a relatively unconvincing one, at that -- leaves it feeling empty and uneventful.
"The White Countess" opens Friday, Jan. 27 at the Landmark's Oriental Theater.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
