The Comfort of Strangers

The credits behind this adaptation of British novelist Ian McEwan's psychological shocker are impressive, to say the least. The luminous cast features Christopher Walken, Natasha Richardson, Rupert Everett, and Helen Mirren. The director is Paul Schrader (Patty Hearst, Hardcore; writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), working with a screenplay from legendary British playwright Harold Pinter. Even the musical score boasts a prestigious creator: Angelo Badalementi (Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart). Toss in the fact that the subject matter is sexual obsession with a definite bend toward perversion, and it would seem that all the elements for a major movie event are in place. Everett and Richardson star as Colin and Mary, respectively, a British pair who haven't--over the course of a three-year plus relationship--been able to decide whether to take the marital plunge. On vacation in Venice, the couple mull over the issue, take long walks through the winding streets, and eventually meet Robert (Walken) and Caroline (Mirren), an aristocratic Venetian couple who are weird in a way the audience (or Colin and Mary) can't quite put their finger on. After the quartet spend a strange day together, Colin and Mary eventually return to Robert and Caroline's huge manse and the film launches swiftly into its shocking conclusion. Although the four thespians turn in fine performances, Schrader and Pinter have conspired to create a mood piece that leans heavily on atmosphere and nearly dispenses with content altogether. More than half the film is given over to picture postcard shots of Venice. But these postcards are blank on the other side. No message comes through. We appreciate the beauty, but cannot imagine how to tie the pictures into the very sketchy hints at sexual obsession. The ending, which ultimately reveals what sick puppies Robert and Caroline actually are, is more baffling than shocking since the audience is given no tangible bridge to build toward it. Undoubtedly, the talented crew set out to make a modern psychological thriller; the result, however, is more of a somewhat skewed travelogue. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Pitman)