Film

Sabrina (1995)

Director: Sydney Pollack

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

There's the touch of a dead hand on this remake of Billy Wilder's romantic tale of a love between April bloom and late September, but it doesn't flatten it completely. Trouble is, disbelief is never suspended. In Pollack's film, one's always aware that Ford (workaholic mega- corporation boss Linus) is competing with Humphrey Bogart; and Ormond (his servant's gawky daughter Sabrina, moonstruck since her puppy days on his playboy brother David) has the inimitable Audrey Hepburn dogging her tracks. As a cure for her infatuation, Sabrina's despatched to Paris as an assistant on Vogue - a whirl through famous landmarks, berets and Piaf - and returns a damned Pretty Woman, sporting a makeover so complete that David doesn't recognise the chauffeur's daughter. When David, engaged to a rival billionaire's daughter, falls for this Cinderella, Linus must take action to secure the merger. Ormond's face is certainly not hard to gaze at, but she looks so often ill at ease that her 'confident' gay smiles suggest, inappropriately, some masked pyschological distress. Likewise, Ford's hard, impassive demeanour takes an age to warm up, almost past the patience point.

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