In the summary it says that the affair that takes place in this movie catches the characters "unawares". If they are unaware, they are certainly the only ones. If anybody watching this movie doesn't know exactly what's going to happen within a few minutes, then they've fallen asleep. And if they've fallen asleep, they probably probably had a dream in which people said interesting things to each other and some of the things that took place came as a surprise.
On the other hand, those of us not lucky enough to fall asleep at least get this much: At the end we are rewarded with exactly the ending we expected five minutes in.
Yes, it's beautiful to look at. If you want to look at pretty shots of Cairo and the pyramids for 90 minutes, you might do better to pick up a few postcards and while away the hours looking at them. It would be silly to waste your time doing that, of course, but it would probably be a better waste of your time than sitting through this tired old movie.
Patricia Clarkson may be a very good actress. But she is not a particularly interesting actress, at least not in this movie. And she certainly isn't playing a very interesting or compelling person in this movie. She is not helped much by a limpid script or by an uninspired director.
There are hundreds of shots in "Cairo Time" of Patricia Clarkson doing pretty much nothing. Here she is lying in bed. Here she is staring out a window. Here she is walking down a street. She looks blank all the time. It's a profound statement about loneliness in a strange city. It must be awful to be alone in Cairo. But it's probably better to be alone in Cairo than it is to be with Patricia Clarkson in Cairo.
There are many long takes of Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig looking at each other. I don't know what they're thinking. I know what I was thinking. I was thinking "could we please look at something else now?" How about some more pretty shots of the Nile?
During much of this movie I found myself wondering how Cairo could be so quiet and sparsely populated. This is not what I'd heard about Cairo. Then it occurred to me that the making of this movie probably sent people running in the other direction. I began to wonder about the poor crew that had to work on this movie. It's bad enough to sit through the long boring scenes in this movie as a viewer. Imagine how excruciating it must have been for the crew who had to endure several takes of some of these dreadfully boring "episodes". I feel for anybody who had to endure any scene in this movie more than once.
If you want to see a movie about a middle aged woman who unexpectedly falls in love with a man she is ill suited for in a beautiful location, then I would suggest "summertime" starring Katherine Hepburn and Rosanno Brazzi and directed by David Lean and set in Venice. Katherine Hepburn, though frequently annoying, is a much more interesting and inventive actress. Brazzi was a far more suitable foreigner to fall in love with. David Lean was a director who seemed to be engaged in what he was directing. And Venice is a better actor than Cairo.
On the other hand, those of us not lucky enough to fall asleep at least get this much: At the end we are rewarded with exactly the ending we expected five minutes in.
Yes, it's beautiful to look at. If you want to look at pretty shots of Cairo and the pyramids for 90 minutes, you might do better to pick up a few postcards and while away the hours looking at them. It would be silly to waste your time doing that, of course, but it would probably be a better waste of your time than sitting through this tired old movie.
Patricia Clarkson may be a very good actress. But she is not a particularly interesting actress, at least not in this movie. And she certainly isn't playing a very interesting or compelling person in this movie. She is not helped much by a limpid script or by an uninspired director.
There are hundreds of shots in "Cairo Time" of Patricia Clarkson doing pretty much nothing. Here she is lying in bed. Here she is staring out a window. Here she is walking down a street. She looks blank all the time. It's a profound statement about loneliness in a strange city. It must be awful to be alone in Cairo. But it's probably better to be alone in Cairo than it is to be with Patricia Clarkson in Cairo.
There are many long takes of Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig looking at each other. I don't know what they're thinking. I know what I was thinking. I was thinking "could we please look at something else now?" How about some more pretty shots of the Nile?
During much of this movie I found myself wondering how Cairo could be so quiet and sparsely populated. This is not what I'd heard about Cairo. Then it occurred to me that the making of this movie probably sent people running in the other direction. I began to wonder about the poor crew that had to work on this movie. It's bad enough to sit through the long boring scenes in this movie as a viewer. Imagine how excruciating it must have been for the crew who had to endure several takes of some of these dreadfully boring "episodes". I feel for anybody who had to endure any scene in this movie more than once.
If you want to see a movie about a middle aged woman who unexpectedly falls in love with a man she is ill suited for in a beautiful location, then I would suggest "summertime" starring Katherine Hepburn and Rosanno Brazzi and directed by David Lean and set in Venice. Katherine Hepburn, though frequently annoying, is a much more interesting and inventive actress. Brazzi was a far more suitable foreigner to fall in love with. David Lean was a director who seemed to be engaged in what he was directing. And Venice is a better actor than Cairo.