The Golden Bowl (2000)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

James Ivory

Writers (WGA):

Henry James (novel)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 September 2000 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A man marries an heiress for her money even though he is actually in love with her friend.

Plot Keywords:

Italy | Billionaire | Italian | Museum | Love Triangle

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Kate Beckinsale	...	Maggie Verver
James Fox	...	Colonel Bob Assingham
Anjelica Huston	...	Fanny Assingham
Nick Nolte	...	Adam Verver
Jeremy Northam	...	Prince Amerigo
Madeleine Potter	...	Lady Castledean
Uma Thurman	...	Charlotte Stant
Nicholas Day	...	Lord Castledean
Peter Eyre	...	A.R. Jarvis, Shopkeeper
Nickolas Grace	...	Lecturer
Robin Hart	...	Mr. Blint
Daniel Byam Shaw	...	Principino at Five Years
Francesco Giuffrida	...	Duke's Younger Son
Marta Paola Richeldi	...	The Duchess
Rossano Rubicondi	...	Duke's Older Son

Also Known As:

La coupe d'or (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for a sex scene.

Runtime:

130 min

Country:

USA | France | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Iceland:L | Portugal:M/12 | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | France:U | Germany:6 | Netherlands:AL | Norway:7 | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | UK:12 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Belvoir Castle, Belvoir, Leicestershire, England, UK

Company:

Merchant Ivory Productions

Trivia:

According to costume designer John Bright, Cosprop provided lace and sequined dresses for the principal actresses: 28 outfits for Uma Thurman, 15 for Anjelica Huston and 20 for Kate Beckinsale.

Quotes:

Amerigo: What is it you want from me?
Maggie: I want a happiness without a hole in it! I want the bowl without the crack!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Reflections of Evil (2002)

Soundtrack:

Wall Street Rag

Subtle, complex and wonderfully portrayed

The best Merchant Ivory so far, and ideal film material.

The story is engrossing and perceptive, dealing with human relationships in all their forms. It takes a hard and frank look at the motivation behind several different relationships, which varies from selfishness, loneliness and boredom to love of the deepest kind. The film makes you wonder how and why we choose our friends.

Personally, I found the acting and direction superb, apart from a couple of flat speeches by Kate Beckinsale (whose accent also varied quite a bit). Unfortunately one of these comes in the scene where her character is introduced, which may have put some people off this film at an early stage (there are a lot of negative comments on here!). The rest of the cast are superb, especially Uma Thurman who is mastering the art of conveying a lot of meaning with just a single look. Tension builds up throughout and is skillfully maintained right until the end.

It is, of course, a film that you need to see on a big screen as part of the point of a Merchant Ivory production is the exquisite detail that goes into getting the costumes and locations just right. Even more so than in their past productions, a huge amount of effort has been spent here.

One thing I found is that the characters felt fairly isolated: most of the time, you just saw the leading characters in a scene on their own and, apart from a couple of party scenes, there was not much attempt to show the society in which they lived; also there were few exterior shots in the cities. It may be that that was quite deliberate, to show that these incredibly wealthy people lived very insular lives.