Review: The Golden Bowl (2001)

This is a Resurfaced review written in 2002 or earlier. For more information, please visit this link: Resurfaced Reviews.

The Golden Bowl

Rating

Director

James Ivory

Screenplay

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Novel: Henry James)

Length

2h 10m

Starring

Kate Beckinsale, James Fox, Anjelica Huston, Nick Nolte, Jeremy Northam, Madeleine Potter, Uma Thurman, Nicholas Day, Peter Eyre, Nickolas Grace

MPAA Rating

Review

Edwardian England, a land of never ending restrained love stories where the women are manipulative and the men are pawns. “The Golden Bowl” is the latest Henry James adaptation to make it to the screen. A young couple, newly married and deeply in love meet a continental woman with lust on her mind and betrayal on her breath.

Charlotte Stant (Uma Thurman), an English socialite traveling in Italy meets and falls in love with Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam), a wealthy royal descendant whose heritage is questionable at best. The problem is he’s marrying Maggie Verver (Kate Beckinsale), a wealthy American who’s living in England with her father Adam (Nick Nolte) while he’s collecting art.

Charlotte attempts to seduce the young Prince and win his love away from his lovely, simple wife. She meets various roadblocks, including his desire to be with her blended with his unwillingness to leave his wife, who he loves and who loves him in return. Even the meddlesome Fanny (Anjelica Huston) can’t stop the seduction occurring right before her eyes.

Northam, no stranger to British romance films, performs admirably opposite Thurman’s dull luminescence. Northam plays the part of a prince well, but when his Prince is Italian and his British accent seeps through, it’s hard to avoid disbelief. Thurman, however is another story. She’s a very talented actress and her performance in “Pulp Fiction” was spectacular. However, her attempt here at period drama is paltry at best and while she adopts a

British accent well, it gets in the way of her conniving and causes her to seem less sincere in he convictions than she really is.

On the other side, Beckinsale is quite good as the doubt-filled, sweet and ultimately disgruntled wife. As her father, Nick Nolte does quite well for his limited exposure to period dramas. Then there’s Huston who’s always a delight to watch. Her interfering socialite terrific, giving the film’s best performance, even if she’s not very often seen.

The settings and costumes are beautiful and even the shots are well crafted. The problem comes in when you realize you’ve seen the plot done dozens of times before and all in the exact same way. It’s hard not to predict where the story’s going and when it gets there, the climax leaves the audience wondering if they’ve seen the end or not and the credits confirming such.

The true metaphor of the film is the Golden Bowl itself. A beautiful, expensive piece of crystal; its surface lovingly carved and polished, shimmering like sun on a dewdrop. To the naked eye, the bowl is flawless, but for the trained eye, there is a fine crack. The crack itself is the wedge in everyone’s life; the wedge that without care and delicacy can shatter something that once was so beautiful.

“The Golden Bowl” itself lives up to its own metaphor. Producer Ismail Merchant and James Ivory have delivered a beautiful, yet slightly flawed film, that only the trained eye can see. It’s an interesting film with lots of wonderful moments, but end the end, it’s just like all the rest.

Awards Prospects

This film wasn’t nearly as high profile as previous Merchant-Ivory films, so a nomination for Anjelica Huston, Art Direction and Costume Design are about the only hopes this film has at Oscar recognition and even then it’s not a sure thing.