BEFORE: I sort of got my TV synched up with my movies, in that 2 nights ago I watched the premiere of the new "Survivor" season right before a film about people stranded on an island, and last night I watched 2 episodes of "Celebrity Apprentice" right before a film about millionaires. I wonder what will happen if I watch "Mythbusters" or "Bizarre Foods".
Harrison Ford carries over again, into a remake of a film that starred Audrey Hepburn. I've got some Audrey Hepburn films coming up next week (but not the original "Sabrina") which are going to help me get to my main topic for March, which will be Cary Grant films. It's going to take me about a week to link to that, though.
THE PLOT: An ugly duckling having undergone a remarkable change, still harbors feelings for her crush: a carefree playboy, but not before his business-focused brother has something to say about it.
AFTER: I think I had an advantage here, having never seen the original, because it meant that I wasn't sure which brother Sabrina would end up with, or in fact if she would end up with either one. In this film the chauffeur's daughter on an estate grows up enamored with one brother, then goes to Paris in order to try and forget him. Her return is ill-timed, because her presence threatens to distract David, the younger brother at a time when he's about to marry a woman, and the marriage is connected to a corporate merger. The older brother, Linus, tasks himself with distracting Sabrina, going so far as to pretend to be in love with her, to keep her away from David.
There's the deception factor that I've seen in several films during the past week - and as I've learned, the pretending of a relationship often leads to the real thing ("Friends With Kids", "A Walk in the Clouds", "The Wedding Date", etc.) So it's not much of a surprise when hanging out with Sabrina manages to melt the ice around Linus' heart, getting through his gruff exterior to make him realize that his work ethic has taken over his life, to the point where he doesn't really feel like he has much of one.
If I've got a complaint, it's the fact that David's fiancée was never really fleshed out as a character, all I knew about her was that she was a doctor, the daughter of a businessman, and that she was engaged to David. But what's she LIKE? Is she loving, kind, mean, bitchy? She's functioning as a foil character for Sabrina, but how am I supposed to make a comparison if the film gives me nothing to work with? How do I know if David's love for her is genuine, or whether his infatuation with Sabrina is an escape from his engagement if we see none of his fiancées personality at all?
For the third time this week, my NITPICK POINT involves plane tickets. I realize that showing someone on the phone with a travel agent, arguing over a ticket, doesn't really make for a compelling plot point - but it's something that we normal, non-movie-character people would encounter if we tried to do the things we see in movies. Have you ever tried to change the name of a passenger on a ticket? I'm not even sure you can do that - I figure you'd have to return the original ticket, pay a penalty or a change fee, and then get a new ticket in the correct name at the last second for the highest possible price. At least here the characters are super-rich, so I imagine they wouldn't care about all those hidden airline fees, or they'd have a travel agent on retainer to take care of them.
I found the timeline a bit confusing as well - how old was Sabrina supposed to be when she first went to France for her fashion internship? 15? 18? 24? They never really said, and they did their best to make her look young, but it was kind of like when they have 30-year olds playing high school kids on sitcoms, and you can tell they're too old for those roles. And how many years did she spend there, before returning as a stunning woman?
Also starring Julia Ormond (last seen in "My Week With Marilyn"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "Anchorman 2"), Nancy Marchand, John Wood (last seen in "Shadowlands"), Lauren Holly (last seen in "Dumb & Dumber"), Richard Crenna, Angie Dickinson, Dana Ivey (last seen in "Two Weeks Notice"), with cameos from Margo Martindale (last seen in "August: Osage County"), Carmen Chaplin (Charlie's granddaughter!)
RATING: 6 out of 10 flat-screen TVs
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