Guinevere ***
rated R Miramax Films 104 minutes starring Sarah Polley, Stephen Rea, Jean Smart, Gina Gershon, Paul Dooley, Francis Guinan, Jasmine Guy written and directed by Audrey Wells
The seamstress down the hall has seen it several times before. A young girl, usually in her early twenties, walks into the room of the 50 year old man. Before long, she has brought her belongings and moved in. In a few weeks, she emerges screaming, frustrated, angry. We never see all these women come and go, but in `Guinevere', Audrey Wells' transfixing directorial debut, we know it all from one look at the seamstress, an inconsequential character without a single line.
The 50 year old man is Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), an Irish photographer who is hired to document a wedding for an upscale family of San Franciscan lawyers. During the proceedings, he meets Harper Sloane (Sarah Polley), a family member who has been accepted to Harvard Law, but has neither the self esteem nor the will to attend.
Later in the week, Harper goes to Connie's apartment/development lab to pick up the wedding photos, and she falls deeply under the spell of this seductive older man. Harper, who is admittedly camera-shy, is admitted to Connie's exclusive school for young women, in which he shares his wisdom and art in exchange for love. Harper is a naive nymphet, and she moves in with him.
As we learn through Harper's voice-over, Connie was the worst and the greatest man she ever knew. For reasons which she doesn't know, Connie refers to her as Guinevere.
However, when Harper visits with an old friend of Connie's, she realizes that she isn't the only Guinevere who was drawn in to this world of romance and photography, and she begins to fear the mysterious older man. But Connie's seductive charms lure her back, and this Lolita romance continues on. There is a scene, later in the film, when Harper's affluent mother (Jean Smart) finds out about the improper relationship, and she addresses the two with blunt honesty. It is one of the more powerful scenes of `Guinevere', and it is from that point that the romance, and the film itself, begins to wind down.
Audrey Wells, who wrote `The Truth About Cats a nd Dogs', has crafted a beautiful, clever film that manages an entirely new spin on a May-December relationship. However, `Guinevere's' final third is amateurish, and the conlusion is unsatisying compared to what has preceeded it.
With `Guinevere', Sarah Polley finally has the leading role she deserves, after star-making turns in Atom Egoyan's `The Sweet Hereafter' and Doug Liman's `Go'. To Harper, she brings the right mix of naivete and experience, and her character grows to become three dimensional. Stephen Rea is eerily good as Connie, and Jean Smart has a small but vital role as Harper's mother.
Despite being excellent for most of its running time, `Guinevere's' wildly uneven conclusion is weird and depressing. Wells doesn't know when to end the film, and the result is like a bad dream.
However, Audrey Wells instills enough chemistry between Polley and Rea to make `Guinevere' is still a very pleasant surprise. To me, Sarah Polley is one of the leaders of a group of young actresses destined for superstardom (Chloe Sevigny is another one). She has the range to be choosy, and she can bring depth to any role.
In `Guinevere', subtlety plays the biggest role, and maybe on a second viewing, I can see more through the seamstress' eyes. In the end, `Guinevere' does falter, but it does so beautifully.
a review by Akiva Gottlieb akiva@excite.com http://cinemania.8m.com
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