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Indie Flix
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 14, 2001
'Golden Bowl' pretty, not powerful
[Lions Gate Films]
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The Golden Bowl (R) (130 min.) -- An Italian prince named Amerigo (Jeremy Northam) loves Charlotte (Uma Thurman) but marries Maggie (Kate Beckinsale) because she's rich.
In order to remain close to her lover, Charlotte marries Maggie's father (Nick Nolte), whose affection for his daughter is kind of creepy. What do you expect from an adaptation of a Henry James novel?
Chicago Tribune film critic Mark Caro wrote: "A story like this should accumulate force. You should feel a growing sense of dread, such as you do when the turn-of-the-century high society closes in on Lily Bart in . . . The House of Mirth. If you don't feel that, you should feel something else.
"Instead, The Golden Bowl dances in circles until you tire of admiring it. The knock on the lesser movies of longtime collaborators director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is that they're too pretty and Masterpiece Theatre-like. Well, the team isn't smashing its image with this one.
"The visuals are sumptuous: pretty scenery, imposing mansions that ooze wealth and emptiness, fabulous costumes -- like the peacock outfit that Thurman's Charlotte wears to a party. But confident filmmakers shouldn't feel the need to dress Charlotte as a peacock to convey that element of her character."
Opens Friday at Channelside Cinemas in Tampa.
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'Bread and Roses' is substantive and sweet
Bread and Roses (R) (105 min.) -- Los Angeles office janitors struggle to unionize under an organizer (Adrien Brody, Summer of Sam) who is falling in love with a cleaning woman (Pilar Padilla). Director Ken Loach loves depicting working-class tensions, typically in Great Britain (Kes, Raining Stones, My Name is Joe).
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott wrote: "(Loach), a tireless cinematic champion of the underdog, has marched under this banner from the start. He plies his viewers with plenty of bread -- chewy and, to some tastes, dry and starchy scenes in which characters debate the finer points of land reform, welfare policy or syndicalist strategy -- but he also scatters petals of whimsy and delight to nourish the senses.
"True to form, there is a long, passionate discussion in a storage room after hours, in which the janitors in a sleek glass office high-rise debate the pros and cons of union membership. There are also several tense kitchen-table arguments about the conflicting demands of family security and worker solidarity.
"As if to balance these moments, there is also a buoyant dance party, a sweet, tentative love story, and, most of all, Pilar Padilla in the role of Maya, an illegal immigrant from Mexico whose mischief and militancy lift the film beyond didacticism and transform it into a vital and complex piece of political art."
Opens Friday at Channelside Cinemas in Tampa.
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