Dreamy camera work, and a spirited performance by a luscious cast, aren't quite enough to save this confused and almost incoherent wartime melodrama about a romantic Jewish showgirl finding love and danger in Nazi occupied Paris.
Here is a fascinating example of how casting people can overlook the most basic physical facts about the actors. Christina Ricci and Cate Blanchett are both stunningly beautiful and breathtakingly gifted. But if you check your IMDb stats, you'll notice that Cate Blanchett is more than ten years older than Christina, and a good six inches taller.
What does this mean? Well, it means that when you see them together, Cate is obviously the one you'd pick as the big sister, the wise and protective mother figure. She towers over Christina like C3P0 standing next to R2D2. But in the story, Cate's character Lola is supposed to be a silly, empty-headed floozy while Christina's character Suzie is an intense, passionate, deeply determined young heroine. Neither actress is right in terms of age or appearance. Cate is too tall, too noble, too elegant and aristocratic a physical presence to be cast as a trashy, comically inept gold digger. And Christina Ricci is too tiny, too fresh-faced, and too physically undeveloped to be Cate's equal.
At the same time, film maker Sally Potter seems absolutely indifferent to the realism of the story, and the storytelling problems of pace, suspense, tension and credibility. While little Suzie drifts dreamily into an almost mystical affair with a hunky Gypsy, (Johnny Depp) the needy and greedy Lola clumsily ropes in a rich but comically cruel and stupid opera star. (John Turturro, the only major character who's perfectly cast in type and ability.) Problem is, Suzie's dreamy affair doesn't really seem that heroic. She doesn't help her Gypsy friends escape the Nazis. She doesn't even help the nice Jewish lady who lives downstairs. All she does is moon around looking serious and dreamy. She hates the anti-Semitism of the cowardly opera singer, but she doesn't really do anything to counter it. She doesn't even warn Lola not to marry the guy, or tell her she could find lots of better men.
The whole story would have worked much, much better if Cate Blanchett and Christina Ricci had been cast better according to size, age, looks and type. Cate should have been the rich, self-assured, and aristocratic wife of a Vichy French banker or politician. She hears Chrstina sing and is captivated by her waif-like looks and pure, child like voice. The two become friends, almost like sisters, but then Cate, who's good at heart but rather bored with her much older husband, starts up an affair with that stunning Gypsy lad. For her he's just a fun fling, but young Christina falls for him on a deeper level, wanting to help him save his people from the Nazis. When spoiled Cate finds out her little sister has stolen her man, she flies into a horrible jealous rage and tells the Nazis everything -- but at the last minute she comes to the rescue and dies nobly, allowing Christina and her Gypsy to escape to America on the last boat out of Marseilles.
Now THAT'S a movie!
Here is a fascinating example of how casting people can overlook the most basic physical facts about the actors. Christina Ricci and Cate Blanchett are both stunningly beautiful and breathtakingly gifted. But if you check your IMDb stats, you'll notice that Cate Blanchett is more than ten years older than Christina, and a good six inches taller.
What does this mean? Well, it means that when you see them together, Cate is obviously the one you'd pick as the big sister, the wise and protective mother figure. She towers over Christina like C3P0 standing next to R2D2. But in the story, Cate's character Lola is supposed to be a silly, empty-headed floozy while Christina's character Suzie is an intense, passionate, deeply determined young heroine. Neither actress is right in terms of age or appearance. Cate is too tall, too noble, too elegant and aristocratic a physical presence to be cast as a trashy, comically inept gold digger. And Christina Ricci is too tiny, too fresh-faced, and too physically undeveloped to be Cate's equal.
At the same time, film maker Sally Potter seems absolutely indifferent to the realism of the story, and the storytelling problems of pace, suspense, tension and credibility. While little Suzie drifts dreamily into an almost mystical affair with a hunky Gypsy, (Johnny Depp) the needy and greedy Lola clumsily ropes in a rich but comically cruel and stupid opera star. (John Turturro, the only major character who's perfectly cast in type and ability.) Problem is, Suzie's dreamy affair doesn't really seem that heroic. She doesn't help her Gypsy friends escape the Nazis. She doesn't even help the nice Jewish lady who lives downstairs. All she does is moon around looking serious and dreamy. She hates the anti-Semitism of the cowardly opera singer, but she doesn't really do anything to counter it. She doesn't even warn Lola not to marry the guy, or tell her she could find lots of better men.
The whole story would have worked much, much better if Cate Blanchett and Christina Ricci had been cast better according to size, age, looks and type. Cate should have been the rich, self-assured, and aristocratic wife of a Vichy French banker or politician. She hears Chrstina sing and is captivated by her waif-like looks and pure, child like voice. The two become friends, almost like sisters, but then Cate, who's good at heart but rather bored with her much older husband, starts up an affair with that stunning Gypsy lad. For her he's just a fun fling, but young Christina falls for him on a deeper level, wanting to help him save his people from the Nazis. When spoiled Cate finds out her little sister has stolen her man, she flies into a horrible jealous rage and tells the Nazis everything -- but at the last minute she comes to the rescue and dies nobly, allowing Christina and her Gypsy to escape to America on the last boat out of Marseilles.
Now THAT'S a movie!