THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996 - ROMANCE / DRAMA / MYSTERY) ***** out of *****
(Never underestimate the power of love and memory...)
CAST: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth, Frank Whatley, Clive Merrison, Nino Castelnuovo.
DIRECTOR: Anthony Minghella
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some star-crossed love among Italian villas and sandswept deserts - straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS: Remember Frances Mayes (Diane Lane), the heroine of one our very first reviews, UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN (review # 4)? Remember how she was traveling through the lovely Tuscany region of Italy? Remember how she was charmed by a rundown but lovely Italian villa called Bramasole - and impulsively decided to buy it and live in Bella Italia permanently? Well, Fran has a lot in common with the heroine of our latest review. She is the even lovelier Hannah (played by the Queen of Lovely herself: Juliette Binoche). And the movie is the exquisitely rendered THE ENGLISH PATIENT. The only difference is that Hannah's villa is a lot more rundown than Fran's - and Hannah stays behind in her villa to care for a dying, ahem, "English patient."
Hannah is a Canadian nurse working with the Allies in Italy at the end of World War II. The war hasn't exactly been kind to her. First, she lost her Canadian officer fiancee in battle. Not long after that, she had to watch as her best friend and fellow nurse, Jan, got blown to bits by a land mine left behind by the bloody Krauts. Shell-shocked and grieving, Hannah notices the crumbling Tuscan villa called Villa San Girolamo when they pass by it - and decides to stay there until her “English” patient croaks. "It makes no sense to keep moving him!" she tells her commander. She says she will care for the mysterious man at San Girolamo until he dies - then catch up with the troops in the Northern Italian city of Livorno. But I wouldn't be surprised if Hannah didn't just want some privacy after spending so much time in close quarters with a bunch of hot, sweaty soldiers. Think about it: her own huge villa all to herself - and she has only one roommate: the, ahem, “English” patient.
Anyhow, Hannah and the “English” patient pass the time at the isolated villa talking and telling stories to each other. Pretty soon, we're seeing the “English” patient flashing back to his life before his accident: a plane crash that left him severely burned and disfigured. Apparently, a few years ago, he was the hot and sexy Hungarian map-maker, Count Laszlo Almasy - and looked a hell of a lot like Ralph Fiennes (hence the hot and sexy part). Almasy was stationed in the deserts of Africa, where everything was well until a woman crossed his path. She was Katharine Clifton, and because she looks a hell of a lot like Kristin Scott Thomas, she's pretty hot and sexy herself. Before you know it, Almasy and Katharine are boinking each other's pelvises in an illicit affair so hot and steamy, it might qualify as a weather phenomenon. All this is problematic, though, because Katharine is married to Jeffrey (Colin Firth), a pilot who is head over heels over her. Uh-oh...
Meanwhile, back in the present (if you can call it that), Hannah meets a mysterious Canadian traveler named David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) - who shows up unexpectedly at the villa, bearing eggs (don't ask). Thinking Hannah and the “English” patient need some company, he asks to stay at the villa. After some hemming and hawing, Hannah agrees. However, it seems that Caravaggio has a hidden agenda, and it has a lot to do with... the “English” patient. Then, just to make things more interesting, an Indian mine-sweeper named Kip (Naveen Andrews) shows up at the villa to make sure all land mines are detected and deactivated. Let's just say that pretty soon Kip and Hannah are giving each other major googley-eyes...
Speaking of googley eyes, that's exactly what Almasy and Katharine are giving each other in the past. Actually, that's not 100% accurate, because they're actually giving each other more than that: imagine every imaginable sex move under the sun, and that pretty much completes the package. By comparison, googley eyes between Kip and Hannah are downright chaste. Unfortunately, Jeffrey cottons on to the fact that Katharine is doing the "Rumpy-Pumpy" with Almasy - and so begins the countdown to an utterly fucked-up confrontation in the middle of the desert. One word: ouch.
So... how badly will Almasy and Katharine's affair end? And how will things turn out between Hannah and Kip? Will she lose him to an explosion just like Jan and her fiancee? What other secrets is the “English” patient hiding? How will these mysteries affect Hannah? Is Caravaggio right when he says Hannah is in love with her patient? Or is it Kip that she loves? And how does Caravaggio's past tie in to the English patient's? How will all these various threads tie in together? What is the ultimate mystery of the “English” patient?
Find out for yourself. Just don't blame me if you fall head over heels for Juliette Binoche in the process...
BUT, SERIOUSLY: One of the funniest episodes of Seinfeld is the one where Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) goes to see THE ENGLISH PATIENT with her date - only to be driven made by how "boring" it was. Obviously, THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a stellar film. It received many perfect ratings from many critics and landed on many of the “TOP 10 MOVIES OF 1996” lists. It also won a slew of Academy Awards, chief among them the Best Supporting Actress honor for Juliette Binoche for her beautiful portrayal of Hannah, the emotionally wounded but resilient nurse who unravels the mystery of Count Laszlo Almasy, the "English" patient. In short, it is a wonderful, breathtaking film that is far from boring.
So why, then, the Seinfeld episode and Elaine's "boredom"? That is simple: THE ENGLISH PATIENT is not a simple film. Unlike many films, it unfolds in a dream-like, languorous way that is not rushed. It slowly fills in the pieces of what starts out a complex and striking mosaic that ultimately turns out to be pretty simple, while trusting the audience to keep up as the story comes together. It puts its faith in the intelligence of the audience - and in the belief that they will pay attention and thereby allow themselves to be drawn into the sensual folds of the tale. Needless to say, many mainstream movie-goers will not have the attention spans necessary for this film, and Elaine's character is clearly one of them. THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a film for adults - not the restless and immature.
The complex tapestry of THE ENGLISH PATIENT is anchored by three main stories - all romances. First, there is the forbidden affair between Laszlo Almasy and the married Katharine Clifton, and – second – we have the tentative romance between Hannah and Kip. One relationship takes place in the past, the other unfolds in the present. However, both mirror one another and are linked by the third romance - which is the platonic connection between Almasy (now the "English" patient) and Hannah as his caregiver. As Hannah pieces together Almasy's past based on his clues from his scrapbook, the past and present converge. David Caravaggio's appearance as an "avenger" adds further intrigue to the tapestry. Director/writer Anthony Minghella, adapting from Michael Ondaatje's surreal and hypnotic novel, does a fantastic job of weaving these various threads into a striking pattern.
The thing is, despite THE ENGLISH PATIENT's initial impression as a very complex tapestry, it really revolves around a fairly simple notion: that love can move mountains and reach forward and backwards through time. The two poster taglines used for the marketing of THE ENGLISH PATIENT are simple one-liners that echo the true nature of the film: (1) "In Love, There Are No Boundaries"; and (2) "In Memory, Love Lives On." Throughout the movie, the various lead characters dance in and out of each other’s orbits as they clumsily try to make their way to each other. The pleasure of this film lies not only in seeing these characters become one, but also in watching how they get there - and how they change and remove their boundaries to let the other one in. It's not always graceful or pretty, as real life can attest, but that's all the better because their "dances" have the ring of truth.
Another lovely theme that runs through THE ENGLISH PATIENT is that of gift-giving as a form of human connection. Almasy, Katharine, Hannah, Kip, and Caravaggio use gifts as ways to bridge the gaps between them. Katharine shyly gives Almasy some drawings to paste into his scrapbook, which he first turns down - not out of ungraciousness, but more for fear of letting her close to him. Later, he realizes his mistake and touchingly accepts her gift. Then, later, he buys her a simple thimble at a Cairo market - and in a heartbreaking scene much later in the film, discovers her wearing it at a crucial moment. Then there's the cup of olive oil that Hannah shyly gives to Kip to wash his hair with - and the awkward but lovely moment where they just stare at each other afterwards. Later, Kip returns the favor by taking Hannah on a midnight excursion to a local chapel with beautiful murals illuminated by a torchlight. It's the loveliest scene in this film - and one of my favorite scenes in any film, ever. Then there is Caravaggio's gift of eggs to Hannah when he first arrives at the Villa San Girolamo. Essentially, the act of giving gifts changes and alters these characters' boundaries, as circumstances bring them closer and closer together. This proves that, as the poster tagline states, in love there are no boundaries.
The second marketing tagline is "In Memory, Love Lives On." This is most germane to the central storyline of Almasy and Katharine. She continues to live on his memory, despite her (SPOILER alert!) tragic death. The words and images she created for him live on in his journal. The same goes for Hannah, who fears that she is cursed because every person who loves her and whom she loves, ends up dying – and she now fears the same thing will happen to Kip because he loves her. Indeed, her pivotal decision to stay behind in the abandoned Villa San Girolamo and care for Almasy, also seems to come from a refusal to remember those she has lost (her fiancee and then her best friend) for fear of hurting even more - and a determination to keep everyone else in the world out. However, the arrival of Kip and Caravaggio into her cloistered space forces her (and Almasy) to remember and engage the living once again. Also, later in the film when Kip loses his beloved boss to a land mine, Hannah realizes that loss is universal - and that everyone loses something. It becomes her turn to comfort someone else. She also realizes that remembering is part of moving on.
Speaking of Hannah, it's quite interesting to note that the wonderful actress who plays her, Juliette Binoche, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (which she won) in 1996 - and not Best Actress. In the novel and the film, Hannah is clearly the heroine. Yet, the Hollywood publicity machine trumpeted Katharine Clifton as the heroine, likely because it is a more "glamorous" role - and because Katharine is the true love interest in the story. Kristin Scott Thomas is terrific as Katharine, and her performance is just as interesting and flawless as Binoche's portrayal of Hannah - but I would have much preferred if Hannah would have been rightfully seen as the heroine of THE ENGLISH PATIENT. It's Hannah who is the film's true emotional center (with Katharine more of a major supporting role) and Binoche plays her with the perfect amounts of hardness and softness, innocent and child-like one moment, then cool and wary the next, then back again. However, this quibble about how the female leads were categorized by the Academy doesn't change the fact that both Scott-Thomas and Binoche are spot-on in their portrayals of these two very different and very interesting women.
In the titular role of the "English" patient, Ralph Fiennes is also ideally cast. Fiennes has always excelled at playing frosty, hard-ass characters whose chilly exteriors mask volcanically explosive interiors. Here, he expressively conveys all of Laszlo Almasy's buried passion and frustrated desire with fluent gestures and eloquent glances. Fiennes and Scott-Thomas' chemistry is not the explosive kind that you might expect, but more of a simmering variety that is absolutely perfect for this couple who circle each other warily while trying to contain their desire for one another - until it can no longer be contained. I would daresay that Count Laszlo Almasy is a career-defining role for Fiennes. We're quite glad that he will be playing the new M in the James Bond franchise.
As for the rest of principal cast, Willem Dafoe, Naveen Andrews, Jurgen Prochnow, James Whatley, Clive Merrison, and Colin Firth are all just as ideally-cast as the three main leads. Dafoe manages to balance both light and dark in his portrayal of the mysterious (and possibly vengeful) Caravaggio, while Andrews has the right mix of boyish charisma and steely professionalism to make Kip alluring and attractive to Hannah. Then there's Firth as the cuckold husband of Katharine: Jeffrey Clifton. We're so accustomed to seeing Firth as a romantic lead in films like BRIDGET JONES' DIARY 1 & 2, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and EASY VIRTUE, that it is something of a surprise to see him play a less assured and idealized character like Jeffrey. However, he proves his range by making the character both sympathetic and pitiful at the same time.
Another lovely aspect of THE ENGLISH PATIENT is the evocative score by Gabriel Yared, which also won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The haunting strings and flutes echo the film's African and Egyptian settings, while also lending the surreal, dreamy atmosphere we mentioned before. Yared's music does a lot towards subtly underscoring the emotional intensity of Almasy, Hannah, Katharine, Kip, and Caravaggio - as well as the threads that bind them together. Definitely a score to play on a romantic interlude with someone you love.
Ultimately, THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a film that is not for the short of attention. It is too languid and meandering for that kind of audience. For those patient folks willing to be surprised and enchanted, however, it is a treasure.
