ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995            TAG: 9512190039
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 12   EDITION: METRO MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT 

`SABRINA': WHERE'S THE ROMANCE?

A romance like ``Sabrina'' ought to be vintage cinematic champagne, a celluloid fantasy of glamour, wealth and sexy elegance.

The 1954 Billy Wilder film starring Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn came close to perfection. While it's tempting to dismiss this remake as cheap California fizzy water, that's not fair. It's better than that, but still not quite good enough.

The main problem is that director Sidney Pollack tries to make the familiar story too realistic. Even the film's brightest moments have a dimly lit, smokey quality somehow suggesting it was made for television. That is precisely not the atmosphere one wants to conjure up for the ``ugly duckling'' tale of a poor chauffeur's daughter's romance with two wealthy brothers.

The casting could hardly be better. As serious multimillionaire Linus Larrabee, Harrison Ford is letter perfect. His gruff manner and bad haircut have seldom been put to better use. As Sabrina, who reinvents herself in Paris, Julia Ormond is absolutely gorgeous. When she's not swallowed up in shadows, she's not a bad actress either. And Greg Kinnear, as the wastrel brother David, may be the most surprisingly effective of the three.

If Pollack had created a properly giddy world for these characters to work within, this might have been one of the year's best. As it is, though, the pace slows to a crawl in the last third, and the sense of sheer fun that's so important to this kind of escapism is hard to find.

Sabrina

**

A Paramount release playing at the Cinema USA Crossroads and Tanglewood Mall. 127 min. Rated PG for subject matter.

LENGTH: Short :   41 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Corporate magnate Linus Larrabee (Harrison Ford) 
          attempts to win Sabrina's (Julia Ormond) heart for business reasons 
          in the romantic comedy "Sabrina." color.