I remember seeing this twice in one week when I was a sophomore at Humboldt -- and I remember being dazzled by it the first time and thinking it was a crock of shit the second. (I also remember saying as much on the tiny dry erase board on the outside of my door. That's what we had before blogs, kids. Readership quantity was about the same, though.) I grabbed this out of the bargain bin of the Evil Corporate Store That Shall Not Be Named, thinking maybe fifteen years might've softened my view of it -- although, honestly, I couldn't even remember what bothered me so much about it.
Oh that's right -- it's a crock of shit. Scott Frank's script is slathered in gooey New Age nonsense (the one character we expect to be the voice of skepticism, Robin Williams' uncredited psychiatrist, does a 180 at the end) and, like insult to injury, a heaping dose of sappiness. (Admittedly, sappiness and New Age nonsense are the peanut butter & jelly of aesthetic crimes, but one would've hoped for more from Branagh.) As a narrative, it's still undeniably engaging, thanks to Branagh's direction and a good performance by Emma Thompson. (What's interesting, fifteen years on, is that the odd-looking Thompson could have a romantic lead role like this. The 21st century does not have an Emma Thompson.) Branagh's clearly having fun with the absurd story and making references to Citizen Kane and the Hitchcock oeuvre, and even when Frank is tying everything together waaay too tightly (it feels so very McKee), it still goes down easy. (Frank's forgiven, though -- he wrote the whip-smart Out of Sight.)
At the time, I wondered why Branagh, known then as the Shakespeare Wunderkind, would take on such a big, loud, ridiculous project. Seeing his inner ham emerge over the years (Wild Wild West, Harry Potter 2), it's now obvious in retrospect that it was made for him.
Where we saw it: dvd | We deign to rate it: 51 outta 100