Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2012

Director James Ivory goes it alone here without his late producing partner Ismail Merchant, with mixed results. Together the two, often with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, gave us such upscale, literary films as A Room With a View, The Remains of the Day and Howards End. In this one, an Iranian-born grad student in the US, at the urging of his domineering girlfriend (Alexandra Maria Lara), travels to Uruguay to convince the bickering family of deceased (suicide), one-book author Jules Gund to allow him to write an authorized biography. Said family consists of the man’s bitter, protective widow (an outstanding Laura Linney), his gay older brother (Anthony Hopkins) and his girlfriend (the always effective Charlotte Gainsbourg). Hiroyuki Sanada plays the Hopkins character’s live-in lover. Great cast. Unfortunately, the central role is filled by the weakest actor, Omar Metwally, who comes off as snippy and bland. This intelligent, atmospheric adaptation of Peter Cameron’s 2002 novel is tasteful, sensuously filmed, offers a spot-on soundtrack, and is beautifully acted. But it’s frustratingly oblique and more than a little languid, bordering on torpid. It’s worth seeing, but somehow leaves you with a feeling of something incomplete.