Susan Granger’s review of “The White Countess” (Sony Pictures Classics)
This last sophisticated, meticulously crafted production from the decades-long partnership of James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant evokes exotic memories of “Casablanca.”
Beginning in 1936 in Shanghai, it’s the melodramatic story of the relationship between an embittered, blind American diplomat, Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), and a poverty-stricken, widowed countess, Sofia Belinsky (Natasha Richardson), who works in a sleazy dance hall to support her 10 year-old daughter (Madeleine Daly), aging aunt (Vanessa Redgrave) and uncle (John Wood) and resentful in-laws (Lynn Redgrave, Madeleine Potter). Formerly nobility, they fled Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. But the family fortunes change when the diplomat opens his own posh nightclub with the sensual White Countess as its aristocratic centerpiece.
Written by Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (“The Remains of the Day”), photographed by Christopher Doyle and directed by James Ivory, it’s a circumstantial, emotionally repressed character study and gradually growing, yet sedate and chaste courtship that culminates a year later with the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. After stunning turns in “The Constant Gardener” and “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” Ralph Fiennes proves his remarkable versatility in this disillusioned, Humphrey Bogart-like role, while luminous Natasha Richarson, utilizing an admirable Slavic accent, is poignant as the exquisite ŽmigrŽ who presides over his Asian version of Rick’s Place. Hiroyuki Sanada completes the stately trio as an enigmatic businessman who provides the pivotal political tension. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The White Countess” is a polished, elegant 8, revolving around refined, impeccable performances.
