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Lies & Whispers
Can their love survive?
1998
Review: December 1, 2006
Director: Roger L. Simon
Starring: Gina Gershon, Rade Serbedzija, Patricia Hodge, Otakar Brousek
Don’t bother.
THE SETUP:
Man and woman fall in love, but her grampa was a Nazi architect.
DISCUSSION:
I rented this movie for one reason only: Rade Serbedzija. Rade is this handsome older Slovenian guy with a great beard who I want to make out with. He usually appears in American movies as the villain [Mighty Joe Young] or in small parts [Eyes Wide Shut], so I finally took the opportunity to see him in a starring role. Especially since I knew it was a romance and there would probably be a lot of kissing and lovemaking scenes.
We begin in this Slovenian refugee camp. Gina Gershon as Lauren comes around the corner and sees Rade as Jiri [pronounced “you-gee”] and freezes, then we flash back 14 months. She was in Prague for this conference, and at one point she backs into a painted window and gets paint on her white sweater. He is there in the café and pours vodka on her to get it out. Then he really pursues her, walking her to the conference, and showing up again at the end to take her out. She is surprised to later learn that he is “one of the most famous dissident writers.”
She is Jewish and from the University of Michigan, where she has a child psychology practice. He is expecting a post as the Minister of Culture. She had a daughter who got sick, and her grandfather came and helped her care for her, becoming a surrogate father. She wants to investigate her grandfather’s Czech background while she’s in Prague.
Their romance blossoms, and he proposes marriage after just a week. There is some talk of him being a womanizer, but it’s just time-filler and there to give the relationship texture. They do make sensuous love, but it’s so sensuous there’s not much to get excited over, and we don’t see anything. We have also noticed that this has a kind of shot-on-video quality, or looks like it was made for Czech public television. In fact, looking back, I bet it was.
SPOILERS > > >
Blah blah blah she finds out that he grandfather changed his name, and the reason he did that was because he was a Nazi, and it turns out he was an architect, and designed many aspects of a nearby concentration camp. And guess what else? Jiri’s dad was in the camp and forced to build out the grandfather’s designs! Gina is all upset, but Jiri is cool about it: “You weren’t even born.” Nevertheless, she keeps harping on it and getting all emotional about how he’ll blame her and will never be able to forget it.
Then the press pick up the story and it’s a huge scandal. Reporters are outside Jiri’s house all the time, and there’s talk that he will lose his position. She learns that her grandfather’s picture is all over the front pages of newspapers across America [a little hard to believe]. They break up, she goes back to America, but most of her patients have dropped her as a doctor. He finally resigns as Minister of Culture, and one day she’s in that Slovenian refugee camp and…
< < < SPOILERS END
Well, there was some Rade to look at, but that was about it. I generally like Gina Gershon, and like that she takes roles like this instead of just things that capitalize on her looks, but she does seem a tad bit limited [and she just grows kind of funny] when she’s trying to do serious emotional scenes. I never understood the deal with her [and presumably her grandfather] being Jews and yet him being a Nazi architect. It took me ages to work up the motivation to watch the last half, my Rade fix already having been achieved, and I just started making fun of the serious, solemn tone of it all, especially the lugubrious expressions of Jiri’s son in the film, who eventually I just wanted to kick. And wasn’t this pretty much this same story as Music Box? With a little romance added?
I guess the most I can say is that it really doesn’t fit in with the type of movies covered on this site. But then again, if you don’t want me watching your movie, don’t put Rade Serbedzija in it. Okay? Thanks.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
I wouldn’t. I don’t know, if you like romances with “moral complications,” maybe.
