Director
James Ivory
Cast
Ralph Fiennes….Todd Jackson
Natasha Richardson….Countess Sofia Belinskya
Vanessa Redgrave….Princess Vera Belinskya
Hiroyuki Sanada….Matsuda
Lynn Redgrave….Olga Belinskya
Allan Corduner….Samuel Feinstein
Da Ying….Mr. Gao
Madeleine Daly….Katya
Dan Herzberg….Frenchman
Jean-Pierre Lorit….Antoine Jacquier
The Movie
I became a fan of Ralph Fiennes’ work via The Constant Gardner, so I was very interested in seeing The White Countess. I figured that Roeper said “Echoes of Casablanca…” and that was on the cover, so it must be good! I ended up being disappointed.
The setting for the movie in Shanghai slightly before World War II. Fiennes plays Todd Jackson, a consultant to a business known as “the company.” They never elaborate on “the company”, which is slightly irritating. Jackson is also blind and really doesn’t seem to care about his job.
Sofia is living in a small apartment with a family and really has nothing going for her. The family seems to want to keep her separate from her daughter because they have a big problem with her job at a nightclub. You can take a guess as to what she does at said nightclub. The odd thing is that Sofia doesn’t seem to care that her daughter is pulled away from her. But the big kicker is that Sofia is actually royalty. She is a countess that had to leave Russia in a bid to get to Hong Kong, where she will be treated with the respect that she deserves.
Jackson wishes to open his own nightclub where Sofia can be the main attraction. He bets everything he has on a horse race, wins, and opens said nightclub. He tries to keep Sofia at a distance though, as he wants to build a world inside of his head to live with. It is odd and sort of freaky, to be honest.
Eventually Sofia’s family forces her to get money from Jackson to get to Hong Kong but they leave her behind because it would be too difficult to acclimate themselves as upper class if they had her with them.
All in all, the movie is confusing, way too long (136 mins.) and seems to drag and drag and drag. It gets functionally irritating when you have more questions than the movie can possibly answer. The acting is fine for what it’s worth, but the movie lacks direction.
Story: 5/10
Acting: 6/10
Look/Feel: 6/10
Originality: 5/10
Entertainment Value: 5/10
Total Score: 27/50
FINAL Score: 5/10
The Video
Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 – The movie does look good, I’ll give it that.
The Audio
5.1 Dolby Digital – It sounds good too.
The Extras
Behind The Scenes of The White Countess – This is your basic normal featurette with back patting and a “deeper” look into the film. The one thing I don’t understand is this: If you can look deeper and talk about looking deeper so much in the special features, why can’t you translate that into the film?
Making of The White Countess – The making of feature on location. It is interesting how they had to create the era they were aiming for while working at the location they wanted to. Time and technology changing a places look and feel will do that.
A Tribute To Ismail Merchant – This is a small semi-biography on Ismail Merchant. Nice little piece.
Score: 6/10
