By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Set in 1930s Korea, during the Japanese occupation, auteur Park Chan-wook’s romantic melodrama “The Handmaiden” revolves around larcenous Sookee (Kim Tae-ri), an ambitious pickpocket recruited to help a con man, known as Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), who is planning to seduce lovely, lonely Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee) to obtain her large inheritance.
This aristocratic Japanese heiress lives in a magnificent manor house, deep in the woods, with her tyrannical uncle Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong), an avid collector of rare exotic books whose tongue has turned black from licking his ink brushes.
Groomed since childhood to marry avaricious Kouzuki, devious Hideko tells Sookee that, when she was little, her deranged aunt (Moon- So-ri) hanged herself from a cherry tree and has become a ghost.
When Sookee has slyly established her servant status in the sumptuous household, fraudulent Count arrives, explaining he’s a painter from an impoverished noble family. Perverse Kouzuki hires him to forge illustrations for new books that can then be sold as originals.
One evening, Kouzuki invites several potential clients to a formal reading of sadomasochistic stories from his collection. Dressed in full geisha attire, exuding a shimmering sexuality, Hideko artfully entices and arouses her audience.
What the gentlemen don’t realize is that Hideko and Sookee are engaged in their own lesbian love-making, satisfying their intimate desires and setting their own goals. So who is manipulating whom?
Based on Welsh novelist Sarah Water’s 2002 “Fingersmith,” which was set in Victorian England, it’s been adapted by South Korean director Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy,” “Stoker”) and co-writer Chung Sen-kyung.
Like “Rashomon, this lushly atmospheric tale is told in three parts and from multiple points-of-view, intensified by Cho Young-Wuk’s melodic score.
In Korean and Japanese with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Handmaiden” is an elegant, erotic 8, an elusive, yet exquisite example of sybaritic Asian cinema.
Ron Howard and Tom Hanks previously collaborated on “The Da Vinci Code” (2006) and “Angels and Demons” (2009). So what happened to “Inferno,” their adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller, is a mystery.
This time, renowned Harvard art historian/“symbologist” Robert Langdon (Hanks) gets mixed up with a villainous billionaire, Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who is determined to reduce the world’s population by unleashing a sinister super-virus as an apocalyptic plague.
But Langdon doesn’t know what’s happening when he awakens in a hospital in Florence, Italy He has amnesia, plus a nasty cut on his head. At his side is Dr. Siena Brooks (Felicity Jones, whose two front teeth, unfortunately, resemble Chiclets).
Soon, they’re both on the run, relentlessly pursued from Venice to Istanbul by an assassin (Ana Ularu), dressed as a Carabinieri and employed by enigmatic Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan) from a covert security company, along with Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), director of the World Health Organization, who once had a romantic relationship with Prof. Langdon.
Alluding to Botticelli’s painting, depicting Dante’s conception of Hell, the film consists of a series of prophecies, visions and trippy hallucinations, peppered with extended chase sequences, searching – in vain – for a coherent plot.
David Koepp’s script is rambling and disjointed, while Ron Howard’s direction is consistently chaotic.
One sequences has Langdon and Brooks darting through Florence’s Boboli Gardens, eluding a drone, before darting into the Palazzo Vecchio to track down Dante’s death mask. Then they’re off to examine the horses atop St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
The climax is set in Istanbul’s subterranean Basilica Cistern, built in 532 during the reign of Emperor Justinian I. Film buffs may recall that James Bond rowed through it in “From Russia With Love.”
Finally, adding insult to injury for fans of Dan Brown’s best-sellers, the conclusion was changed because, according to Howard, “it wasn’t cinematic.”
On the Granger Gauge, “Inferno” is an inane, frenzied 4, fumbling the franchise.
Kelly Reichardt is a feminist filmmaker, based in Portland, Oregon, known for her minimalism in “River of Grass,” “Old Joy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Night Movies,” “Wendy and Lucy.”
Adapting short stories by Maile Meloy as “Certain Women,” she has created a cinematic portrait of several disparate women in desolate Livingston, Montana.
Laura Wells (Laura Dern) is a lawyer whose angry construction worker client Fuller (Jared Harris) refuses to accept the fact that, since he has already accepted a settlement for a workplace injury, he cannot be further compensated. “If I were a man, I could explain the law and people would listen,” she complains.
Alienated Gina Lewis (Michelle Williams) is a wife, mother and business owner who is trying to convince an elderly neighbor (Rene Auberjonois) to sell her some “authentic” local sandstone so that she can use the rocks for the home she’s building with her philandering husband Ryan (James LeGros) and their sullen teenage daughter, Guthrie (Sara Rodler).
Last – but certainly not least – Native American Jamie (Lily Gladstone) is a shy, lonely horse rancher who becomes infatuated with Elizabeth Travis (Kristen Stewart), a recent law school graduate who commutes to teach a night class twice a week at a rural school, as Jamie looks forward to their chats at a nearby diner after class.
Writer/director Reichardt is much less concerned with plot than the inner turmoil of her quietly suffering characters, working closely with cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, eliciting excellent ensemble performances. Unfortunately, however, the pacing of her mini-dramas is slow and uneven.
On the Granger Gauge, “Certain Women” is a meditative, soulful 6, occasionally stunning in its bleak silence.
( Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
