Susan Granger’s review of “The City of Your Final Destination” (Screen Media)
James Ivory’s first cinematic excursion since the death of his longtime partner Ismail Merchant continues their richly refined, tantalizing and exotic storytelling tradition.
After a young Iranian-American graduate student, Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally), is refused permission to write the authorized biography of Jules Gund, a little known Uruguayan novelist who recently committed suicide, his assertive American girl-friend Deidre (Alexandra Maria Lara) convinces him to travel to South America to try to get Gund’s reluctant executors to change their minds.
Living in two houses on a huge, remote plantation, or estancia, called “Ocho Rios,” Gund’s eccentric literary heirs consist of acerbic, repressed Caroline Gund (Laura Linney), his controlling widow; wistful Arden Langdon (Charlotte Gainsbourg), his younger mistress; and benevolent Adam Gund (Anthony Hopkins), his gay older brother. To add to the complexity, their extended ‘family’ also includes Portia, Jules Gund’s 10 year-old daughter by Arden, and Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada), Adam’s devoted companion. Desperate to obtain their consent in order to continue his academic career, Omar arrives uninvited, and his surprise visit – plus a sting of a honey bee – serves as a catalyst, forever altering the disparate lives of everyone concerned.
Based on Peter Cameron’s acclaimed 2002 novel that wound up on the shortlist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, it’s been adapted for the screen by James Ivory’s perceptive, long-time collaborator, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and lushly filmed in Veronica, Buenos Aires and Argentina’s pampas by Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (“Vicky Christina Barcelona”). While Omar Metwally seems a bit superficial, even passive, in his simplicity and Alexandra Maria Lara’s is irritating in her relentless aggressiveness, the other characterizations, particularly from Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney, are subtly textured and quietly compelling. In addition, Ivory’s grainy images of the Gund brothers’ expatriate parents vacationing in Venice are evocative of a bygone era, particularly since they brought back a real gondola that’s still perched in a boat house.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The City of Your Final Destination” is an elegant 8, an enthralling journey into self-discovery.
