‘City of Your Final Destination’ Isn’t Worth a Visit

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CHICAGO – Although “City of Your Final Destination” is not the latest installment of the Rube Goldberg-inspired splatter series, it does seem to be populated with the walking dead. The only similarity shared between the “Final Destination” franchise and this picturesque drama is an overwhelming abundance of tedium, generated by a plot that often seems as stagnant as its listless characters.

In his heyday, director James Ivory made one wonderful, timeless movie after another. His collaboration with producer Ismail Merchant lasted over four decades. The filmmaking duo proved that sophisticated, proudly literate dramas like “A Room With A View,” “Howard’s End” and “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge” could find a wide international audience. Their films were understated, deliberately paced and novelistic but never dull. It was exhilarating to observe the subtle, wordless attraction between Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in 1993’s “The Remains of the Day,” which still stands as the enduring masterpiece of Merchant Ivory Productions.

“City” is the first film Ivory has made without Merchant, who died in 2005, but not before the team’s work was turning stale. Just as Woody Allen annually serves up a pale imitation of his previous work, Ivory has been toiling away at pictures that do little more than evoke memories of the past. What used to be expertly nuanced drama has deteriorated into hollow pageantry verging on self-parody. There isn’t a single moment in Ivory’s latest effort that feels the least bit authentic. Like Allen, Ivory has the power to assemble a cast of formidable talent, but he has no idea how to utilize their abilities. Instead, he has them recite turgid dialogue that collects dust immediately after leaving their mouths. Screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has been writing Merchant Ivory films ever since the team’s 1963 debut feature, “The Householder,” which was an adaptation of Jhabvala’s own novel. Her legacy is as rich and impressive as Ivory’s, though on the basis of this monotonous bore, both longtime collaborators are advised to either take a break or throw in the towel.

City of Your Final Destination
City of Your Final Destination
Photo credit: Screen Media Films

Based on the novel by Peter Cameron, “City” centers on an unsympathetic protagonist, mopey grad student Omar (Omar Metwally), who’s bullied by his frigid girlfriend, Deirdre (Alexandra Maria Lara), into pursuing the family of a suicidal Uruguayan novelist, Jules Gund. Omar has just won a grant to write a biography on the late author, and his whole career depends on the approval of Gund’s widowed wife, Caroline (Laura Linney), who will have none of it. After turning down Omar’s offer, he shows up on her front lawn unannounced, and catches the eye of Gund’s mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whose isolated existence has led her to become attracted to any new man entering her life.

Gainsbourg’s sweetly vulnerable presence is the film’s sole bright spot, as she falls for the charms of a man who is inherently charmless. Metwally’s performance consists of a glazed-over expression coupled with a flat line delivery interrupted by inexplicable chuckles. But not only is Metwally a void of personality, he’s also entirely devoid of the charisma necessary to persuade these people that he’s the man to tell Gund’s story. This guy couldn’t coax a cat out of the water.

A plot synopsis of this film is pointless since scene after scene of “City” consists of nothing more than wordy explanations of the plot. Jhabvala’s script forces the characters to spout endless exposition about what has happened, what may happen and what will happen, rather than simply allowing the viewer to observe what’s happening (since cinema is, you know, a visual medium). If this were a stage play, the audience would have swiftly fled for the exits long before intermission. The gorgeous images captured by “Twilight” cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe sit there on the screen without emotionally connecting to the action. The one shot that comes close to encapsulating the spirit of this picture is that of a shoe stuck in the mud.

City of Your Final Destination
City of Your Final Destination
Photo credit: Screen Media Films

Like Hopkins’s lonely butler in “Remains,” the characters in “City” are trapped in a captivity of their own choosing. They have cut themselves off from the world, and prefer to live amongst the ghosts that haunt their aging surroundings. Several of them share an inability to create; Caroline’s paintings copy the work of masters much like how Ivory has recently been copying the stylistic blueprints of his previous films. Since the story is utterly impossible to care about, there’s nothing left to do but reflect on the wasted potential of the cast. Linney, one of the greatest actresses in modern cinema, spends most of the time shooting brooding expressions into mirrors, windows and the lens (they’re probably all aimed at her agent). And as Gund’s lookalike brother Adam, Anthony Hopkins looks positively uncomfortable, and is paired with a most unlikely bedfellow (a trend that strangely continues in Woody Allen’s upcoming picture).

‘City of Your Final Destination’ stars Laura Linney, Omar Metwally, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexandra Maria Lara, Anthony Hopkins, Hiroyuki Sanada and Norma Aleandro. It was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and directed by James Ivory. It opened on May 28th at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema and the Landmark Renaissance Place. It is rated PG-13.

HollywoodChicago.com staff writer Matt Fagerholm

By MATT FAGERHOLM
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
matt@hollywoodchicago.com

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