Synopsis
In 1930s Shanghai, 'The White Countess' is both Sofia—a fallen member of the Russian aristocracy—and a nightclub created by a blind American diplomat, who asks Sofia to be the centerpiece of the world he wants to create.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Ralph FiennesTodd Jackson
- Natasha RichardsonCountess Sofia Belinskya
- Hiroyuki SanadaMatsuda
- Lynn RedgraveOlga Belinskya
- Vanessa RedgravePrincess Vera Belinskya
- Madeleine PotterGrushenka
- Madeleine DalyKatya
- Allan CordunerSamuel Feinstein
- John WoodPrince Peter Belinskya
- Lee PaceCrane
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Tribune
It's a very classy, finely made film, and, as one watches it -- particularly those last sweeping scenes of political turbulence and escape -- one feels both pain at their (Merchant-Ivory) parting and grateful for what, together, they achieved. - 75
USA Today
The film takes a long time to unfold, and some scenes feel inert. But ultimately, the conclusion is moving and satisfying. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
Fiennes and Richardson make this film work with the quiet strangeness of their performances; if they insist on their eccentricities, it's because they've paid them off and own them outright. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
The director has staged the elaborate production in his usual stately but impressive manner, and the production values boast the usual Merchant/Ivory stamp of quality. - 70
Chicago Reader
Combines a delayed-gratification romance and rumblings of war. - 63
New York Daily News
In any case, the movie moves only when she's (Richardson) in the center of it, and her complex performance as a woman balancing her dignity with her survival instincts is one of the year's very best. - 60
The New York Times
With its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, The White Countess never develops any narrative stamina. - 60
Los Angeles Times
The White Countess takes place in a fascinating time and place, rife with conflict and turmoil. But to watch Fiennes float (and Richardson trudge) through it all, absorbed in themselves and their own private misery, is to wish they'd started falling earlier, if only to knock some sense into them.
