Apart from the fact that she is light years the better actor of the two Isabelle Huppert is in some ways the French Michael Caine in that neither appears capable of turning down any film offered to them no matter how unsuitable, mediocre, or down-and-out rubbish it actually is. As a result both actors have more dross than gold on their CVs although again Huppert has much more gold than Caine, who has arguably more dross on his own CV than any actor alive or dead with the possible exception of Alan Lake and Maxwell Reed. This time around Huppert is playing a certified ding-dong, a woman so out of touch with reality and real life that all it takes is the witnessing of one kiss - not foreplay, not heavy petting, merely a kiss - to make her decide there and then to abandon everything she has achieved in life, career, home, relationship, and get as far away from her life so far as she can. Huppert is, of course, a sublime actress and I for one am prepared to watch her in anything - I said 'prepared' rather than 'happy' advisedly. Villa Amalia is like a Rohmer movie in which we not only WATCH paint drying but THINK about watching paint dry. Any viewer who was frightened as a child by logic will suffer acute distress when, having wound up in Ischia more by luck than judgment and with only one person knowing her whereabouts, the father who abandoned her forty years before turns up out of the blue and immediately recognizes someone he saw last when she was barely more than an infant. This is only one example of the directors' contempt for the audience. Huppert is in every single scene and that's about the only positive thing we take away with us.
Review of Villa Amalia
