Customer Reviews

The City of Your Final Destination

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Peter Cameron's elegant, wistful novel THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION has been well transitioned to the screen by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and director James Ivory: in so many ways this film brings a host of fond memories of all of the films made by the members of Merchant Ivory films. It has the same sense of grace of transporting one culture into another, of examining interpersonal relationships as they are tied to etiquette and tradition and family, and the chances we take in the name of self-fulfillment and love. It is a mood piece and a delectable offering for the brain.

Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally) is a postgraduate student and instructor at a Colorado College, living in a tenuous relationship with Deirdre (Alexandra Maria Lara), and delaying his desire to write his PhD thesis -a proposed biography of deceased novelist Jules Gund. He is unhappy with his life, frustrated that his thesis committee will not approve of his dissertation unless he has the family of Jules Gund's permission to write the biography. After a little nudge from a colleague he decides to travel to Uruguay - without Deirdre - to gain permission from the Gund family to proceed. Deirdre, hurt because Omar wants to go without her, insists that Omar travel to Uruguay: this may his only chance to step out of the life whose rut he is in and move on to higher means.

Omar journeys to Uruguay where he meets the Gund 'family' - Gund's gay brother, Adam (Anthony Hopkins) and his lover of 25 years Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada); former wife Caroline (Laura Linney); and Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Gund's mistress and mother of Gund's daughter, Portia. Though greeted with hospitality it is clear that the family, as executors of Gund's estate, refuse to give Omar permission. Omar is invited to live with the Gund's until he can make arrangements to return to the US, but the visit is extended, allowing for changes to insert in the family unity as each one slowly agrees to allow Omar to write the biography. Omar has a fall, is recovered by Arden (Deirdre flies to Uruguay for support but senses the change in Omar's feelings with Arden), and during his recovery Omar awakens to what he really wants in life - love, beauty, and the freedom to express himself in all matters.

In the manner of fine story telling, there are excellent moments of passion, and comedy, and a fine dissection of family life in all its permutations. The cast is uniformly excellent, composed of such a stellar group of actors. This is a quiet adagio of a film, filled with charm, elegant cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe, and fine music - both from the classics and from contemporary writing by Jorge Drexler. This film retains the 'Merchant Ivory': and that says enough! Grady Harp, August 10

There have been some truly great films created under the Merchant/Ivory banner. More than 20 years later, I can still enthuse rapturously about sequences from "A Room With A View," "Howards End," and "The Remains of the Day." Well "The City of Your Final Destination" is the first major release by director James Ivory since his long time producing partner Ismail Merchant died in 2005, so --in my book--its arrival was quite an event. In adapting Peter Cameron's novel, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (a frequent Merchant/Ivory collaborator who won Oscars for "Room" and "Howards End") has created a high-minded and stylish literary adaptation. Ivory has assembled a terrific cast including Laura Linney, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Norma Aleandro, and Anthony Hopkins--so, all in all, sounds like a recipe for triumph! Well, here's my rave...."I liked it." Stately and elegant, there was much that I admired about "The City of Your Final Destination"--but ultimately, the film is a little bloodless, a little inert.

When doctoral student Omar embarks on writing a biography of recently deceased author Jules Gund, he initially receives a refusal to participate from Gund's family. Pushed by his aggressive girlfriend, he decides to challenge their denial and travels to Uruguay to visit the estate they all share. The three people standing in his way are Gund's brother (Hopkins), his widow (Linney) and his mistress (Gainsbourg). Omar is soon enchanted by Gainsbourg and befriended by Hopkins, and the book deal starts to seem secondary as he is accepted into this new lifestyle. Linney, his last obstacle, holds steadfast for reasons of her own. All the actors are nice--but while Omar is affable, he is also a bit vacant. Gainsbourg and Hopkins are pleasant and Linney, as always, is lovely and strong.

My disappointments with "The City of Your Final Destination" comes from its lack of real passion or emotion. Having released only one book, Gund's legacy is treated as if he were Hemingway--and the film doesn't make a case for his literary significance. He seems to have been a unconventional sort who lived with vigor what with an at-home mistress and an unexpected suicide, but we never see anything remotely hinting at his tempestuous nature. Heck, his suicide is barely spoken of and is of little dramatic consequence--anyone looking for ANY motivation about Gund will be left hanging. The characters, especially Linney, remark that a biography would be obtrusive because it would expose the family to judgement and potential criticism. The general mantra is something akin to "No one would understand us, we don't understand ourselves." But aside from the living arrangement being slightly unusual, there is nothing about this family that is particularly scandalous or intriguing. In the film, everyone is so pleasant and polite, their dark secrets and revelations don't seem especially noteworthy.

I liked " "The City of Your Final Destination." It's gorgeous to look at, for sure, and the actors do well. But the dramatic elements fell short. It just fails to bring anything of real emotional consequence to the forefront. I never really knew or cared about Gund and the vitality of his clan was so muted as to be inconsequential. It's sophisticated and lovely, but a little empty. I doubt that I will be thinking about "City" much next month--much less in 20 years. KGHarris, 11/10.

I won't go into the plot and the faithfulness with which it treats with the details of the book from which it is derived. I have not read the book.

James Ivory does not disappoint. This is a movie which struck so many chords with me. Having visited Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina a few years ago, I identified with the sense of elegance which the film telegraphed both in terms of the gorgeous scenery and the people that it depicted. I recall walking in Recoleta and seeing middle aged very well kept women sporting their furs with a casualness which had long been abandoned in cities like New York years ago, in response to the vociferous anti-fur lobby. But then and there I thought Buenos Aires seemed stuck in a time warp slightly out of touch with a reality that the rest of the world had long since embraced. So too in this movie. Here was a group of people tolerating each other and existing in a world not sustainable anywhere else or in any other context. The author seeking his approval for execution of his precious biography of a deceased author, had a girl friend, Deirdre, who was almost literally disparaged for being too much of the real world and out of sync with the artifice of the gracious but dated Ocho Rios estate and its well-heeled inhabitants. But it was the navigation of that world with language and costuming that was so elegant and measured, that sets this film and its great cast led by Sir Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney, Omar Metwally, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Hiroyuki Sanada, apart from the ordinary and the mundane.

This film despite being an ode to an upper class existence that most of us will never experience, confers credibility on it and makes us ordinary folk very much interested in how this all turns out for these sorry bunch of misfits bent on validating each other's existence in this finely wrought but fragile world.

THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION (2008, released 2009 and 2010) is director James Merchant's latest offering ... and whatever this film may be considered, I for one am glad to see Merchant at the helm so long after Ismail Ivory's death. Even if it is based on a silly novel by Peter Cameron ....

This rather tiresome story concerns Omar Razaghi, an assistant professor/doctoral student at a Kansas university (beautiful Boulder, Colorado is the unnecessary stand-in) who is obsessing about writing a biography of one Jules Gund. The fictitious Gund is a deceased writer of one single famous book, "The Gondola", something more or less like an autobiography. Omar needs authorization from Gund's executors or his biography of Gund, which is his doctorate or post-doctorate project (we aren't clear what it is) goes down the crapper.

In a seemingly pointless and rather dreary storyline, Omar travels to Uruguay to meet the surviving Gund Family at the sprawling Gund estate: Gund's widow Caroline (played as the usual nasty dragon lady by the revolting Laura Linney), his brother Adam (a stunning but wasted Sir Anthony Hopkins), his paramour/hanger-on Arden (the oh-my-god-stop-dead beautiful genius Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Adam's beautiful boyfriend Pete (Hiro Sanada).

Poor Omar is none the better off having a brow-beating Norwegian (or is she German) girlfriend, Deirdre (the spectacularly lovely Romanian-born Alexandra Maria Lara). She was the worst of the characters because she really had no purpose except to annoy me. She might have played Linney's daughter with that onscreen persona. Also ... why make her a strange, unidentified Teutonic person when she could have just played herself, a Romanian? Are Germanic people bigger bitches than Latins?

The reason I say this film is 'pointless' is because the real objective here is to show us how certain people seem to belong together while others should avoid one another like the plague. I have only to examine my family to know that - but I suppose Merchant had to film this. Paltry and unwanted too: it opened in America on 18 April 2010, on one screen. It raked in a whole $24,401 after having been filmed on a budget of $8.3 million!

Oh, we owe Merchant Ivory Productions a little more than that, people! Get this and see how you like it. As with most MI films, the acting is so-so, but everything is so beautiful and done with care (mostly). The story may drag a bit and this may seem as if it should have taken place in Victorian England, as I feel it should have done. However, the presences of the still-drop-dead-gorgeous Charlotte Gainsbourg - who sang one of the soundtrack songs - and Anthony Hopkins alleviate the feeling of worthlessness inherent in this story.

All in all, with its many flaws, it is a fine experience that kept my attention throughout - and unlike most film of this caliber, it was not pretentious or preachy. It simply IS, and it deserves attention.

City of Your Final Destination is a terrific movie. Great acting and a thought provoking message about the choices people make with their lives. It makes the viewer ponder their own life for parallel choices and motives they might be undergoing. I found it to be a movie I wanted to discuss in detail afterward. I love that in a film. It is definitely worth watching if you like intelligent films. Excellent!

There's not much action in this film. It has the feel of a staged production, which isn't necessarily bad. It opens its paneled door and invites you in as a guest at the presumably Uruguayan estate of a deceased author who was a Salinger-like recluse known for the one major book he produced. His wife, his mistress, his brother, and the brother's partner, continue to live on together in their South American Garden of Eden retreat. (How such a large estate can be maintained with so little hired help remains one of the few mysteries of the plot.)

There are some tensions between these people who sometimes seem to exist as out-take chapters from the great man's writings. There is an undercurrent of residual jealousy between the man's lawful wife and his mistress. Some additional disagreement is triggered by the intrusion on the estate of an aspiring young American writer intent on writing the biography of his author-hero. Then a bit more potential bitterness is added to the olio when the young writer's girlfriend arrives from the States to tend to him in the wake of an accident he's suffered - and to derail any budding romance he might be entertaining.

These differences don't generally come to a boil though, or even a simmer. For the most part, the characters remain marinating in their own privileged lives of civilized comfort. Since this is a James Ivory production (the remaining member of the famed Ivory-Merchant team), you know the setting will necessarily be a civilized one.

This movie tries to make a gondola that's housed in an out-building on the estate into a central character. The gondola was imported, at great risk and expense, from Europe by the author's parents. They rescued it as part of their attempt to rescue themselves from the Nazi onslaught in Europe. But the repeatedly invoked image of the gondola in this film sort of falls flat. The script was based on a novel by Peter Cameron, and I sense that the gondola might have been a more integral symbol in the book - a symbol of displacement - a symbol of withdrawal from ordinary use and usefulness - a symbol of risk and removal in order to maintain some sane sense of continuity. But all these possible meanings for the gondola get a bit lost in the necessarily brief 2-hour format of a film. Here the gondola itself comes off more as an intruder in the film - and worse yet, an irrelevancy.

Nevertheless, as a whole, this is a worthwhile watch. The actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is memorable and appealing as the author's gamine mistress. Anthony Hopkins lends his usual note of classicism to his role.

Maybe not much happens in the course of this film. But it will probably linger with you, putting you in a mood of calmer hopefulness that some people, somewhere, might yet prove to be civilized.

I am immensely pleased to have found this film. Many of the performances (Anthony Hopkins, Hiroyuki Sanada, Alexandra Lara, and Laura Linney) were inspired but some (Charlotte Gainsburg) were not. The story is engaging but there were many aspects of the plot that did not make real practical or emotional sense. The motion of the plot is a bit formulaic. The story drew me in in spite of the gaps, however. The cinematography is lush and beautiful. I particularly liked the warmth of the relationshiop between Hopkins' and Sanada's characters and the coldness at the heart of both Linney's and Lara's portrayal of their characters. When all is said and done, as E.M. Forster said: "only connect."

This movie was only released in 10 or so cities so no one saw it.
It is a must have for Anthony Hopkins fans.
The BluRay quality is great and we have a cheap BluRay player!
Enjoy the rich colors of the South American scenery.
Edwina

The acting in this Merchant Ivory film was top notch; particularly Sir Anthony Hopkins. The man has so much talent that his aura permeates any screen portrayal he undertakes, and lends it some class. Laura Linney was superb in her role also. Her portrayal of the virago was extremely subtle. A bravo performance. I absolutely loved to loath her character. All the other actors acted like people in real life. It was superb.

The plot? The family of a deceased author refuses to give a biographer authorization to write the author's biography. The biographer travels to Uruguay to try to persuade the family.

This movie deserves five stars because its characters are well developed and because everything was original, in a pleasing way. Or if it was not absolutely original, it at least avoided triteness. For example Omar, who appears to be the main character, turns out to be the least attractive character. But you need to be a discerning judge of character to recognize his faults, or indeed to recognize that he has faults. If you are not careful, you may find yourself thinking he is a typical protagonist, one of the good guys.

Other examples of the movie's avoidance of triteness: no violence, no guns, no spies, no car-chase sequences, no superheroes, no aliens, etc. Only one scene might be called an action sequence, and even it is humble in that respect. Nevertheless, from beginning to end the movie is interesting. The location of the story--Uruguay--is fresh. The cowboys (gauchos?) are different from American cowboys. Even the color of the alcoholic beverage is new, a cherry red.

The cinematography and sound are excellent. The acting seems perfect, though in this regard I am not a perfectionist.

Though I gave you a synopsis of the plot, the story is all about character. Who is right? Who is wrong? Who does the right thing? Who does the wrong thing? Who deserves whom, and who does not deserve whom? Go ahead and ignore the old dictum, "Judge not, or you will be judged." Tear these characters to pieces, and I do not mean the actors and actresses, I mean the characters. Or commend them. Judge them! If you can do that, the movie should earn your appreciation.