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88As in David Lean's "Brief Encounter," the suspense in Cairo Time comes from what doesn't happen between its pair of "lovers."
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80Like so many movie love stories before it - from Murnau's "Sunrise" to Linklater's "Before Sunrise," and beyond - Cairo Time is about two wandering lovers, people spending time together without realizing how precious that time will come to be.
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80Think "In the Mood for Love" with hookahs instead of chopsticks.
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80Ms. Clarkson's performance as Juliette, the fashion-writer wife of a United Nations functionary, is the film's reason for being. She makes yearning palpable. She turns mysterious silences into a language of love.
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75It's a haunting and hypnotic film.
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The melancholic, beautiful Cairo Time confirms two things that hardly need confirming: The Egyptian capital is a breathtaking metropolis, and Patricia Clarkson is one of the best actors in the world.
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75Cairo Time is a valentine to Egypt.
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75Rarely is an actress asked to do so much with so little -- and even rarer does that actress succeed as well as Clarkson does.
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75What emerges is time pleasantly spent with a slice of life that examines a romantic détente between two cultures. Like smoke from an Egyptian hookah, the melancholia lingers.
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75Cairo Time is affectingly gentle, with Juliette slowing down to open up -- a gossamer transformation that Clarkson makes tangible.
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75You may find, as I did, that the lovely twilit moments in this movie stay with one, and that summoning them up in your mind is like slowing down time.
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70Cairo Time is the kind of quietly romantic chamber piece one wants to speak up for, in part to support the small but growing band of Arab women making their mark on national cinemas both East and West.
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70The time does pass agreeably enough, and if Cairo Time does not amount to much, it does evoke a wistful state of feeling and a complicated city with enough skill and sensitivity that you wish it had dared more.
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67Cairo Time may be your ticket if you're in the mood for love, but the excursion is a cut-rate journey.
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67The plot doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, but Cairo Time works on an emotional level and is a hassle-free way to sample Egypt.
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67It's a postcard-lovely movie that, in spite of its best intentions, ends up feeling a little touristy.
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63Given the rarity of such movies, and such opportunities for an actress like Clarkson, Cairo Time earns some indulgence for a pace that Westerners may find languid.
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63If you're interested in a drama about a few days in the life of an American abroad, you may find Cairo Time engaging. But for some viewers, it all may be just too subtle.
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60Writer-director Ruba Nadda's film is ultimately like a summertime flirtation that never quite comes to anything.
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For a movie defined by its restraint, this travelogue is remarkably physical; as a valentine to the rueful desire of grown-ups acquainted with both joy and disappointment, the film is a true rarity.
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60Cairo Time remains smart, compelling and appropriately sad at its finale.
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Happily, writer-director Ruba Nadda's emphasis on body language ultimately trumps the clumsiness of her script.
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Aside from the sweltering Egyptian climate, little heat or excitement is generated by the film or its attractive stars.
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50Cairo Time is a kind of bourgeois delusion. It's authentically aggravated but bogusly conceived.
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50One disappointment here is that Patricia Clarkson, the queen of indie film, is missing much of her usual spark. Her performance may be aiming for sensual, but too often it comes across more as listless.
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50The fourth feature from Canadian writer-helmer Ruba Nadda ("Sabah") has a slightly breathless, old-fashioned feel, calling to mind the cliched fiction found in the type of ladies' magazine the heroine edits.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 7
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Mixed: 0 out of 7
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Negative: 2 out of 7
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