Synopsis
His wife having recently died, Thomas Jefferson accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, though he finds it difficult to adjust to life in a country where the aristocracy subjugates an increasingly restless peasantry. In Paris, he becomes smitten with cultured artist Maria Cosway, but, when his daughter visits from Virginia accompanied by her attractive slave, Sally Hemings, Jefferson's attentions are diverted.
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Cast
- Nick NolteThomas Jefferson
- Greta ScacchiMaria Cosway
- Thandiwe NewtonSally Hemings
- Gwyneth PaltrowPatsy Jefferson
- Jean-Pierre AumontD'Hancarville
- Simon CallowRichard Cosway
- Seth GilliamJames Hemings
- James Earl JonesMadison Hemings
- Michael LonsdaleLouis XVI
- Nancy MarchandMadame Abbesse
Recommandations
- 75
ReelViews
Regardless, though it may be occasionally slow-moving and perhaps a half-hour too long, this film is put together with care and a mindfulness of quality. - 50
Chicago Reader
By the time [James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala] get around to articulating a story, the inhibitions imposed by their "good taste" begin to seem more like gutlessness, and what initially promises to be an exposure of American liberal doublethink about slavery winds up as a querulous wimp out on a subject that the underrated "Mandingo" is better equipped to deal with. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie tells no clear story and has no clear ideas. - 50
Christian Science Monitor
Slow, beautifully filmed, Nolte's Jefferson implausible. - 50
Entertainment Weekly
Bereft of any flesh-and-blood honesty, the last half of the movie plays like a ludicrous PBS version of "Mandingo." - 50
Rolling Stone
The team of producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala drops the ball with this droopy, snail-paced prigs-in-wigs movie. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
Jefferson in Paris is dull, sluggish and unfocused. - 50
San Francisco Examiner
This movie would have had a chance of being interesting had it been about Sally Hemmings.
