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White Countess, The
Sony Pictures Classics


7.3

based on 30 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 9 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some violent images and thematic elements

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, John Wood, Madeleine Potter, Allan Corduner, and Hiroyuki Sanada

Shanghai, 1936 was a crossroads for political intrigue, refugees escaping turmoil, gathering military forces, international business and underworld culture. Two people caught in this maelstrom forge a bond on the brink of the Japanese invasion: a beautiful Russian countess (Richardson), reduced by circumstances to supporting her family as a bar girl and taxi dancer, and a blind former diplomat (Fiennes), devastated by the loss of his family in political violence and disillusioned by the world's inability to make peace. The story revolves around "The White Countess," the elegant nightclub created by the diplomat to shut out the chaos and tragedy that surround him. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| War
WRITTEN BY:	Kazuo Ishiguro
DIRECTED BY:	James Ivory
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 16, 2006 Theatrical: December 21, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	138 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / USA / Germany / China

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a very classy, finely made film, and, as one watches it -- particularly those last sweeping scenes of political turbulence and escape -- one feels both pain at their (Merchant-Ivory) parting and grateful for what, together, they achieved.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that this oasis of romance amid the turmoil of Shanghai represents the way that Merchant and Ivory, for 40 years, saw themselves: as a sanctuary of calming, life-size taste in a movie culture grown coarse. It was often far from perfect, but I'll miss that sanctuary.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie works best as spectacle: as a piece of old-style, non-CGI, on-location epic filmmaking.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

This is Merchant-Ivory's kind of showmanship, the unflashy adult variety of movie magic that they made their hallmark.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It offers top actors in Fiennes and Richardson, plus a rare joint appearance by the sisters Redgrave.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

For gourmands who appreciate this sort of cinematic comfort food, though, The White Countess is a fitting finale for the producer.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Any resemblance between this film and "Casablanca" is purely deliberate.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Its sumptuous, stately pace will wither the patience of countless moviegoers, but the impressively acted and gorgeously exotic The White Countess improves the longer you mull its complexities.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Richardson -- acting with her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, who plays her aunt, and her aunt Lynn Redgrave, who plays her mother -- finds the story's grieving heart. Fiennes is her match in soulful artistry.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Fiennes's performance, tricky and impassioned, is the showpiece.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Following his triumphs in "The Constant Gardener" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Fiennes is superb as Todd.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The film takes a long time to unfold, and some scenes feel inert. But ultimately, the conclusion is moving and satisfying.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Fiennes and Richardson make this film work with the quiet strangeness of their performances; if they insist on their eccentricities, it's because they've paid them off and own them outright.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Combines a delayed-gratification romance and rumblings of war.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

As with so many Merchant-Ivory films, The White Countess glides along on restrained, skillful performances and tapestry-rich cinematography, but its beating heart lies deep below the surface, where only determined viewers will find it.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

The director has staged the elaborate production in his usual stately but impressive manner, and the production values boast the usual Merchant/Ivory stamp of quality.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In any case, the movie moves only when she's (Richardson) in the center of it, and her complex performance as a woman balancing her dignity with her survival instincts is one of the year's very best.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

With its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, The White Countess never develops any narrative stamina.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The White Countess takes place in a fascinating time and place, rife with conflict and turmoil. But to watch Fiennes float (and Richardson trudge) through it all, absorbed in themselves and their own private misery, is to wish they'd started falling earlier, if only to knock some sense into them.

Empire Angie Errigo

Trouble is, James Ivory just doesn't do sleaze. The tawdry milieu of taxi dancers, pleasure-seekers and spies rings hollow.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Moves with the stately speed of most Merchant/Ivory productions, which is to say too damn slow, but the film is snatched from the jaws of tedium by Doyle's resplendently lush camerawork and Fiennes and Richardson's spot-on performances.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle suffuses the film with color, fire and smoke. But the more lively his images become, the more faded the characters seem.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A watchable disappointment. Sumptuous to look at, tastefully dull, and ultimately rather silly.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This last Merchant/Ivory film feels like a thin apparition of the team's best films -- similarly static but less substantial, less palpable, and sadly less respectable, just the vestigial remains of a better day.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

This romantic tragedy has the measured gentility of the M.I. classics, but its sheen of crass melodrama is startling, and its many metaphors run amok in a tangle.

Variety Justin Chang

This final production from the team of James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant is itself adrift in more ways than one, with a literate but meandering script by "The Remains of the Day" novelist Kazuo Ishiguro that withholds emotional payoffs to an almost perverse degree.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

I have the greatest respect for Kazuo Ishiguro, whose wonderful novel "The Remains of the Day" became one of the best films in the Merchant-Ivory oeuvre. But the combination of his stately writing and James Ivory's stately directing, even when pepped by Christopher Doyle's fizzy cinematography, makes for fatally low-key viewing.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Ivory's last minute decision to render his hero sightless may make certain symbolic sense, but creates an even greater distance between Jackson and the woman he must inevitably come to love; their dull self-restraint makes "The Remains of the Day" look like soft-core porn.

Village Voice Ed Park

Alas, The White Countess, the final Merchant Ivory film, is something of a lacquered dud.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Despite its brilliant evocation of this great city at this most provocative time in history, the movie just gets sillier and sillier.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bob C gave it a6:
This was a very good 100 minute movie. Unfortunately at least 36 minutes of extraneous and unnecessary material was left attached. As a result, the first two-thirds of the movie moved way too slowly. Fiennes and especially the gorgeous Richardson were quite good in their respective roles.

Mark B. gave it a5:
Before a preview of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino once asked an audience who among them had seen and liked the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory production The Remains of the Day, and then famously (or infamously) invited all those who responded affirmatively to get lost immediately. In addition to revealing his own tastes (as if you couldn't have guessed) Tarantino was strongly suggesting that those who loved one film will hate the other. Well, I'm a big fan of both The Remains of the Day AND Pulp Fiction, and as such I think Tarantino's blanket dismissal by implication of the entire Merchant-Ivory catalog displays as narrowminded and simplistic a view as that expressed by those who refuse to even consider watching Switchblade Sisters, Master of the Flying Guillotine or any of the other genre and/or exploitation films QT salivates over. Sadly, though, producer Merchant's and director Ivory's final effort (Merchant died last year) gives Tarantino's generalizations about their work undue credence; it's good-looking but overlong, unfocused, diffuse and a far cry from the glory days of Remains, A Room With a View and Howards End. Like Remains (based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote this film's screenplay), The White Countess deals with the gathering forces that would lead to World War II (Remains poignantly concerned itself with the Nazi influence; Countess with the Japanese presence in China)...and, more specifically, with the prickly, would-be romance between its male and female leads that's continually thwarted both by historical obstacles and by the man's own reticence. Ralph Fiennes plays a blind ex-diplomat (Ooooh! Obvious symbolism, kids!) who enters into a business relationship with an impoverished Russian countess (Natasha Richardson); both go in on an elaborate nightclub. Movies about the ramblings of self-pitying bar owners are risky propositions: when done right you get Casablanca, when less so, the result is a film like this that eventuaslly becomes as tedious as listening to a drunk for several hours. The poorly timed, staged and edited final half hour, when the shoe drops and the invaders attack, doesn't help matters much; if there's a director you DON'T want to entrust action sequences to, it's Ivory! At the end of the day, I suppose there are far worse things you could be doing with your moviegoing time than watch the almost unbearably beautiful Richardson in a variety of clingy evening gowns, even if both she and Fiennes are noticeably stuggling with their accents while she's wearing them. On the other hand, Vanessa Redgrave (Natasha's real-life mom) and Lynn Redgrave (her aunt) as ungrateful family members represent stunt casting at its least effective; I hope they enjoyed the experience of filming together but on this evidence would suggest that future family reunions stay out of camera range.

Pat G. gave it a4:
I'm sorry. I went to this film with high hopes. I like literary films and all of the Regrave clan. But the movie was plain boring most of the time. Flat and slow. It perked up a bit in the last 45 minutes or so because of the action on screen. And I'm afraid that Ralph Feinnes is just wooden. A real dissappointment.

Oleg M. gave it an8:
Guys, listen up! If you plan to go to the movies with your date: this is a perfect one. It's exotic (in a sense that you can discuss it), protracted (plenty of time of checking your date's profile in the dark theatre), romantical (r.fiennes and natasha richardson make such an appealing couple) and so un-american (little violence and even less sex makes it refreshing). Again: don't watch it on your own; get a date with a russian girl and see it with her. Good luck!

[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Beautiful atmosphere, great acting. Fiennes and Richardson never overact, and it's wonderful to watch.

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White Countess, The Sony Pictures Classics

White Countess, The
Sony Pictures Classics