THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A film review by Marianne Luban
Copyright 1996 Marianne Luban
***1/2 out of ****
United States, 1996 Running Length: 2:40 MPAA Classification: R (Sex, nudity, violence, profanity)
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Colin Firth, Naveen Andrews, Julian Wadham, Kevin Whately, Jurgen Prochnow Director: Anthony Minghella Screenplay: Anthony Minghella based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje Music: Gabriel Yared Miramax
David Lean, I think, would have liked "The English Patient". It has all the earmarks of one of his films--exotic scenery, convoluted plot, lush music, British accents and enough length to numb ones backside without actually making one long for the credits.
Amid flashbacks that take the viewer from a bombed-out monastery in WWII Italy to a desert expedition, we have Canadian nurse, Hannah, played with a sort of reckless intensity by Juliette Binoche, tending her moribund patient, who may be even more mysterious than he immediately appears. Sometimes, bed-ridden Ralph Fiennes (who bears a disturbing resemblance to Boris Karloff as "The Mummy") speaks like an authentic Briton, yet, at other times, his accent is evocative of...well, his "Schindler's List" character. Perhaps he needed Martin Landau to give him lessons in a Hungarian lilt, because Fiennes, while convincing as a dying mass of scar tissue, does not quite persuade us that he is a Count from Budapest.
In fact, Ralph Fiennes, undoubtedly a fine actor, is the main problem I had with "The English Patient". I must admit I loved everything else about this movie and was only mildly annoyed by the rather corny, contrived dialogue. This film really is "Lawrence of Arabia" meets "Casablanca" and contains all that is stirring, even haunting, about pictures that were made before 1950. It is a true Romance--albeit without a proper hero. David Lean, that shrewd cast-master, would not have put Ralph Fiennes in this role. He would have had the good sense to find someone with the wistful charm and mesmerizing authority of a young Peter O'Toole. I, personally, would have begged Jeremy Northam of "Emma" to play the patient (I doubt he would have required much cajoling). Now THAT is a man to die for, someone whose eyes alone would explain the admirable Kristin Scott Thomas falling in love with him at first sight. Ralph Fiennes, for all his histrionic merits, is just too much of a stretch--even more than Daniel Day Lewis. The rest of the cast is practically perfect, but this is an old-fashioned picture that cries out for an old-fashioned heart-throb hero. Had "The English Patient" been a different Britisher, this film would have made out at the box office like the annual incomes of whole group-practice of surgeons.
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