THE GOLDEN BOWL
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Lions Gate Films Director: James Ivory Writer: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, novel by Henry James Cast: Uma Thurman, Jeremy Northam, Kate Beckinsale, Nick Nolte, Anjelica Huston, James Fox, Madeleine Potter, Peter Eyre
In Mike Nichols's landmark film "The Graduate," a naive college graduate falls in love with the daughter of a woman who has seduced him, arriving just before the younger woman is to take her wedding vows with another man. In the movie's dramatic, concluding moments, he succeeds in stopping the wedding and spiriting the bride away. While some brides have been known to flee from the altar moments before tying the knot, such escapes rarely happen in such a striking manner. What's more common, however, is for a man or woman to walk the aisle with a second choice--with someone accepted because numero uno is somehow not available. Imagine what would happen, though, if just before the marriage of convenience--and for months after the occasion--one's true love shows up hither and thither to rekindles the flame! Such is the subject of Henry James's mature novel, "The Golden Bowl," which in the hands of a typical Hollywood studio could be made into broad comedy with soapish sentiment but is treated by James Ivory with much of the subtlety given the theme by the novelist.
In a gorgeous film that embraces the theme of class differences, Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam), a member of Europe's impoverished aristocracy, must abjure marriage to Charlotte (Uma Thurman), the love of his life, as they are too poor to marry (much like Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden in Edith Wharton's "The Mouse of Mirth"). The prince is luckier. When Charlotte re-enters the scene just before the scheduled nuptials of her prince in shining armor to Maggie (Kate Beckinsale)--who is the daughter of billionaire Adam Verver (Nick Nolte)--the tightly-drawn coil begins to unwind.
Talky, this is. But so what? The talk is good: clever, witty, ironic as all get-out and for suspense our attention is riveted almost throughout the film on how the plot will turn out. We are persuaded that Adam, who has about the closest relationship to his daughter Maggie that one can imagine a dad having with his grown-up girl, will take violent action against Amerigo for hurting her--for lying about his past affair with Charlotte and even worse for continuing the affair during the marriage to Maggie. After all, Amerigo and Charlotte are so dauntless in their attachment that they risk getting caught time and again. To foreshadow the potential of this revenge, director James Ivory opens the movie in much the way that Philip Kaufman opened "Quills." In Kaufman's case, a weeping aristocratic woman is being coarsely tied and led to the guillotine by a brutal executioner. Here, we see some of Amerigo's ancestors (15th or 16th century I believe) caught in bed with the wrong people, both led by an infuriated lord to a beheading. (One thinks of the revenge of Hannibal against Pazzi in Ridley Scott's blockbuster movie: tossed out the window and hanged in much the way a Pazzi of yore was done away with.)
The central symbol, the golden bowl, is a flawed gift which Charlotte and Amerigo consider buying for Maggie, the flaw representing the life led by the two rich Ververs which shield them from the truth about their most important relationships.
What a cast, with one exception. What's Uma Thurman doing in a Merchant-Ivory movie anyway? To my eyes she's unattractive: one can hardly understand the prince's undying passion for her particularly when he is married to a rich and awfully cute woman (that's Kate Beckinsale), but given the debonair character of Amerigo with his sexy Italian accent (well kept throughout by Jeremy Northam), one can understand the fatal-attraction type love felt for him by Ms. Thurman's character. As for production design, tops. A costume ball contrasts with a scene of industrial America, the latter indicating that Adam Verver made his money by paying immigrant labor mighty low wages for a 12-hour 7-day week. Castles all over Italy and England were borrowed for the occasion.
Anjelica Huston plays the Maggie-Smith like role as the all- knowing aunt (Fanny), nose-in-the-air with disgust at the vulgar American culture which she fortunately need not put up with in England, and Nick Nolte shines as the well-kept rich guy with his collection of Holbeins and the like but with an almost agoraphobic mistrust of the fresh air.
Since "The Golden Bowl" is considered by some to be Henry James's most mature work, one wonders why it took so long for the filmed version, given the existence of Iain Softley's "The Wings of the Dove," James Ivory's "The Bostonians" and "The Europeans," Agnieszka Holland's "Washington Square," Peter Bogdanovich's "Daisy Miller" and James Campion's "The Portrait of a Lady." Perhaps screenwriters were intimidated with the story's intricate, sophisticated, even convoluted narrative and the difficulty of putting subtle levels of analysis and character on the big screen. Nonetheless we're pleased that Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has tackled the difficult job of trying to evoke the subtlety of the novelist's language--James's bid to circle around a subject without touching it directly. While "The Golden Bowl" is filmed by James Ivory on location in England, Italy and a sound-bite in the U.S., cultural differences are subordinated in the film (as they were in the novel) in favor of an intense study of individual character in this filmed version. A startling production which would be of interest to the Merchant-Ivory fans but too verbal for the MTV crowd.
Not Rated. Running time: 130 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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