MOVIE REVIEW

Passionada  (2003)

Starring: Jason Isaacs, Sofia Milos, Seymour Cassel
Director: Dan Ireland

Rating: PG-13

Studio: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Release Date: 8.15.03

Review Posted: 8.15.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

Lifeless "Passionada" a Stifling Romance

Celia Amonte (Sofia Milos, “The Ladies Man”) still mourns her husband. Never mind that he’s been dead – a fisherman tragically lost at sea – for years now, in the strictest traditions of the tight-knit Portuguese community of New Bedford, Massachusetts, this is just how things are done.

But only in her early 30’s, attractive and a locally renowned authentic Fado singer, Celia’s impetuous and high-spirited daughter Vicky (Emmy Rossum, Clint Eastwood’s forthcoming “Mystic River”) thinks it is high time her mom just got over it all and started finding out what romantic possibilities exist. Soon, she’s sending her mother out on disastrous blind internet dates with much younger men only interested in sex and coming on to her like love-struck puppies, not exactly what Celia is looking for.

Enter the mysterious Charles Beck (Jason Isaacs, “The Tuxedo,” “Black Hawk Down”), a wandering gambler and grifter passing through town staying with rich friends Daniel (Seymour Cassel, “The Royal Tennenbaums”) and Lois Vargas (Theresa Russell, “Wild Things”). Spying her singing at the local restaurant, he’s immediately enraptured by the talented Celia and tries everything he can think of to secure even a cup of coffee with the mysterious woman, striking out with every advance.

But it isn’t until Vicky notices Charles uncanny ability to count cards at a local casino that the gambler’s luck changes in regards to the girl’s mother. She wants to learn this art herself, and the young woman is willing to help Beck woo Celia in exchange for lessons. Reluctantly, the aging gambler agrees, and with the daughter’s help romance between Charles and Celia slowly begins to blossom.

Lovers of the Lifetime movie of the week rejoice as the film of the summer made expressly for you is here. For the rest of us, all I can say is this: run. Not just slowly, mind you, but quickly and as far away as possible. Director (and original co-founder of the long-running Seattle International Film Festival) Dan Ireland’s new film “Passionada” is a ponderously executed movie, full of so many love story clichés that I don’t even know where to begin. The film is a mess, and at 108 minutes it is excruciating to sit through.

When I stop to think about it (which is something I’ve actually been trying not to do ever since I got out of the press screening), the failure of “Passionada” is really too bad. It’s set in an amusingly engaging locale, the vibrant color of the vivacious Portuguese community in New Bedford an excellent background for a romance. The sounds and sights of the people and their culture deserve to come alive, to jump off the screen, instead here only being relegated to background noise in a movie that could use all the life it can get. Only the magnificent Portuguese Fado music, so richly song by the beautiful Milos, is used to any real effect in the film, stirring echoes of passion and pathos the movie could really use more of to be anywhere near more efficacious.

Yet, time and time again Jim and Steve Jermanok’s tiresome screenplay gets in the way of telling a sweet and engaging love story. It’s dripping in syrup and contemptible cliché, making Charles into such a sad sack and Celia into such a flavorless blank slate that is almost impossible to care for either of them. Granted, that’s better than the duo treat Vicky; she’s just plumb annoying. I couldn’t tell if Rossum – an amazingly stone-faced Brittany Murphy clone – is just a supremely terrible actress or if it was just the indisputably obscene way the script treats her that makes Vicky such an intolerably ponderous presence. Quirky just for the sake of having a quirk; perky only because the movie needs a perk; Vicky isn’t so much a character as she is a device to energize the proceedings every time they go stale. Which, in the case of “Passionada,” is far, far too often.

Not helping matters is Ireland’s total un-interest behind the camera. It is as if the talented director knows things just aren’t going his way, so instead of injecting some much needed visual ingenuity, he instead has talented cinematographer Claudio Rocha’s (“Picture Bride”) camera sit stagnantly, just another observer trying to endure the mess. And, an almost even worse tragedy, Ireland completely wastes the talents of the wondrous Lupe Ontiveros (“Real Women Have Curves”), an actress always guaranteed to bring enthusiasm and life to nearly any proceedings.

Ireland made one of the best and most original romances of the past decade with his debut film “The Whole Wide World” starring a young Renée Zellweger. Since then, his next two films (this and the even worse “The Velocity of Gary”) have been bottom-barrel entertainment to say the least. I can’t help but feel Ireland, one great movie aside, is fast becoming a talent of unlimited yet never-to-be-realized potential. What a shame.

Rating: ê   (out of 4)

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