_The City of Your Final Destination_

[septimus_...@q.com]

A surprisingly vibrant film from James Ivory and Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala. Perhaps the source material is less of a canon and
they did not feel the urge to make it into one of those
screamingly obvious, static, pageantry feast (_Howard's End_
being the nadir of the genre) they used to be famous for.
It helps that the film has a very contemporary cast: Omar
Metwally plays the main character (would-be biographer of a
one-book famous author), is partly of middle eastern descent,
and his girlfriend is played by the Romanian Alexandra Maria
Lara (_Downfall_). Added to the French Charlotte Gainsbourg,
the British Anthony Hopkins, and American Laura Linney (not
half bad for a change; she plays the stuck-up widow and
lady of the house shared by the Gainsbourg's mistress and
Hopkins' brother), and the cast immediately injects a lot of
contrast and energy. Gainsbourg is back to her typecast
put-upon, depressive role, but she lights up every film she's
in. Lara is the real find perhaps; the filmmakers made
the similarities between her bossy character and Linney's
bitchy matriach too obvious, perhaps, but overall, a surprisingly
fresh, well-shot, and interesting film.