Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 9, 1993 TAG: 9302090249
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
`SOMMERSBY' ROMANCE ISN'T LOST ON MOST CRITICS
Roanoke Times & World-News movie reviewer Mike Mayo called "Sommersby" a "thoroughly enjoyable, old-fashioned period drama," that "means to be nothing more (or less) than crowd-pleasing popular entertainment."The movie, which was filmed last summer in Bath County and Lexington, opened nationally last Friday. Reviewers from around the country mostly seemed to agree with Mayo's assessment of this updated retelling of a true story about a 16th-century Frenchman who may or may not have returned to his wife after disappearing for eight years. But not totally. Here's a sampling of what they said over the weekend:
Jack Mathews of Newsday wrote that, " `Sommersby' is one of those good old-fashioned stories, the sort meant to soak hankies by the yard, however illogical the circumstances. And this one, which stars a surprisingly unmannered Richard Gere and a luminous Jodie Foster, has just enough emotional power to overcome plot notions that border on the foolish."
Mayo had questioned the film's credibility. But Mathews said the script and direction "are almost more burden than the romance can shoulder."
Still, he wrote, the love that develops between Foster's and Gere's characters "can overcome anything, even a clunky script."
Rita Kempley of The Washington Post described "Sommersby" as a "wildly romantic, mildly corny melodrama."
She thought the direction was languid and the film pretentious, "but it's really an old-fashioned hankie-soaker with Gere and Foster ably jerking tears. An odd yet convincing couple, they won't replace Rhett and Scarlet, and frankly, my dears, who can? But belles wring and bosoms heave in a manner most pleasing."
Desmond Ryan of Knight-Ridder Newspapers described the movie as "a rich and moving version of a tale that returns Gere to a professional level he has not enjoyed since `Days of Heaven' and `Bloodbrothers.' And that level is still several notches below the astonishing and boundlessly subtle performance fashioned by Jodie Foster."
He predicted that " `Sommersby' is undoubtedly destined for box-office success . . ."
David Kronke of the Los Angeles Daily News also saw chemistry between Gere and Foster. He found Sommersby's scenes of the "tentatively burgeoning romance between Jack and Laurel the most effective . . . depicted with a sense of understatement and grace and nicely played by Gere and Foster."
He found the technical aspects, "handsomely constructed - there's a grace and sense of scale that instills the film with a nobility the narrative itself doesn't earn."
Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel, like several of the reviewers, found "incidental pleasures" in " `Sommersby's' affecting musical score" and "elegant cinematography." Alas, no reviewer except Mayo listed Western Virginia as the lush landscape's source.
Boyar thought Foster and Gere made a charming couple and predicted the scene that will be talked about is the one in which Laurel shaves off Jack's shaggy beard.
"As Laurel holds a blade to Jack's throat," Boyar writes, "she protests the brutality with which he (or the man he is replacing) used to treat her in bed. Jack's sensitive response suggests that - with regard to bedroom etiquette - he is a new man.
"For Laurel, it's as if her frog of a spouse has turned into a prince. If only all of her problems - and all of the film's - could be so easily remedied."
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described "Sommersby" as "a film at war with itself."
He said the script "is filled with an inordinate amount of ripe Southern foolishness, everything from humble freemen to drunken racists and cross-burning night riders, and the language is similarly overblown and cliched."
Still, he wrote, "[`Sommersby'] shows once again that a strong core story can hold its own against an indifferently written script, and that that magical commodity called star chemistry can compensate for acting that ranges from all the way from radiant (Jodie Foster) to regrettable (almost everyone else).
Not every reviewer was as kind.
Michael H. Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote, "All its many charms and wealth of lavish production values cannot save Jon Amiel's `Sommersby' from remaining merely a futile stab at Americanizing a superior French film."
Clifford Terry of the Chicago Tribune called the film, "a big-star,\ big-ticket reworking of the French film," that "in politically incorrect times, decidely would have qualified as a `women's movie,' a veritable `weepie.'
"Director Jon Amiel . . . and screenwriters Nicholas Meyer and Sarah Kernochan make a few token passes at matters such as dreams-versus-reality and the true nature of love, but the big focus in this sluggish, ponderous exercise is whether Jack Sommersby is an imposter and whether his wife knows it or is merely playing along because he treats her well and is, well, a hunk."
Apparently underwhelmed by both the direction and acting, Terry wrote, "Foster is given little to do except react and smile enigmatically, while the always-wooden Gere is all grins and charm, coming across less as a shadowy protagonist than a State Farm agent."
The New York Times News Service's Vincent Canby wrote: " `Sommersby' is both about the cyclical nature of the universe, where matter can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed in state, and a demonstration of that law."
However, he worried that ,"The revelations about Sommersby's past, combined with Laurel's contradictory testimony, may confuse audiences so thoroughly that they will leave the theater thinking that `Sommersby' is about worn-out land, crop rotation and fertilizer."
Perhaps Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram best captured the true nature of the "Sommersby's" mixed reviews.
"No accounting for taste," Price wrote.
Apparently, how true.