The White Countess film review

certificate_PG

THE WHITE COUNTESS

Ismail Merchant, who died last May, had a long and distinguished career in films. As a producer and director with long-term partner James Ivory, Merchant's output became a household name, ensuring artistic values, top of the range casts and usually a period theme. His final work, which now receives a posthumous release, bears all of these hallmarks, but in the longer term is unlikely to be mentioned in the same breath as successes such as A Room with a View or The Remains of the Day.

There's plenty of vigour to be found in James Ivory's film, and it needs it. Kazuo Ishiguro's screenplay may have read well on the page, but it is a dense, soporific affair, which despite Herculean efforts from both M and I, never really succeeds in engaging the audience on an emotional level.

Set in 30s Shanghai - where there is a fin-de-siecle feeling prior to the Second World War - the film tells the story of the relationship between Jackson, a maverick blind diplomat played by Ralph Fiennes, and Sofia, a former minor member of the Russian royalty forced to flee with her family, played by Natasha Richardson.

What begins as a simple helping hand from one to the other soon develops into something stronger, and the story tells of how these two unlikely partners attempt to forge a relationship of sorts in a strange and uncertain country.

Had the film just concentrated on this saga of potentially doomed love, then it might have been a different matter. There are interesting insights into the lives of the ex-patriots abroad (both there for very different reasons), but all of it is framed in the larger political context, a number of scenes of which drag on interminably. Ishiguro may be one of Britain's best novelists but he needs to learn the art of editing when it comes to writing for the screen. There really is no need for this film to be 135 minutes long.

Fiennes is given carte blanche to play a quirky blind American and does so with the relish you would expect him to. The relationship between himself and Richardson never quite takes off though. Nobody seems sure what the overall tone of the film should be, so any chance it has of being an earnest tale of love is quickly squashed. A very minor piece from one of cinemas much-loved couples.

Paul Hurley