It is difficult to judge the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair without continually comparing, and contrasting, it with the superb original which it touches at many points. Yet it is far from being a pastiche. The fundamentals of the plot are the same in both cases: crime as a diversion from extreme wealth and alienation, and the mutual fascination of investigator and investigated. In the original, Steve McQueen's Crown was as serious and professional about the theft of money as he was about everything else in his life. The problem with the plot of this version is that the crime is just too much of a hobby, too much of a silly game intended to indulge Crown's whimsy or to please a girl. His alienation, especially as evidenced in the rather ridiculous sessions with the psychiatrist (Faye Dunaway), seems merely inconsequential, even childish.
Denise Russo's Catherine Banning is interestingly different from the Vicky of the original. They are alike in being roles that require little action or acting, but Miss Russo's investigator is an intriguing confusion of the sophisticated with the banal, of the sleek with the tawdry, with none of the dependence of slight gestures to signify major transformations. The central game that made the 1968 original a masterpiece, that defining game of chess, is absent in the remake. It turns out that after a little attention and a few days in the Caribbean, Banning falls for her man. Just like that. There is no tension to it, nor, despite all the talk of it, is there really any sense of a cat and mouse contest. Although Banning is given, and takes, the opportunity to betray Crown, she is not the master of this game - throughout, it is Crown who sets the rules and leads the play. And, in the end, it is he who gets the girl on his terms: the uncertainty and ambiguity, that in 1968 had peppered the relationship of Crown and Vicky right through to the end, is absent in the newer version.
Still, this is an enjoyable and clever movie, with good performances from the two leading characters. They completely eclipse the rest of the cast. The final museum scene, with Magritte's derby multiplying exponentially, is well done and tremendous fun. Russo's portrayal of social ambiguity and slightly forced sensuality are particularly admirable. A strange sidelight on her role is cast by her preoccupation with liquids, the consumption of which seems almost a fetish. She consumes, often noisily, a vast quantity and range of fluids during this movie, from vintage champagne to a product most closely resembling sludge. Perhaps this affectation exposes the fundamental absurdity of the plot, an absurdity that is there in the original, but to which we there willingly surrender. Here, in 1999, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's just silly.
Denise Russo's Catherine Banning is interestingly different from the Vicky of the original. They are alike in being roles that require little action or acting, but Miss Russo's investigator is an intriguing confusion of the sophisticated with the banal, of the sleek with the tawdry, with none of the dependence of slight gestures to signify major transformations. The central game that made the 1968 original a masterpiece, that defining game of chess, is absent in the remake. It turns out that after a little attention and a few days in the Caribbean, Banning falls for her man. Just like that. There is no tension to it, nor, despite all the talk of it, is there really any sense of a cat and mouse contest. Although Banning is given, and takes, the opportunity to betray Crown, she is not the master of this game - throughout, it is Crown who sets the rules and leads the play. And, in the end, it is he who gets the girl on his terms: the uncertainty and ambiguity, that in 1968 had peppered the relationship of Crown and Vicky right through to the end, is absent in the newer version.
Still, this is an enjoyable and clever movie, with good performances from the two leading characters. They completely eclipse the rest of the cast. The final museum scene, with Magritte's derby multiplying exponentially, is well done and tremendous fun. Russo's portrayal of social ambiguity and slightly forced sensuality are particularly admirable. A strange sidelight on her role is cast by her preoccupation with liquids, the consumption of which seems almost a fetish. She consumes, often noisily, a vast quantity and range of fluids during this movie, from vintage champagne to a product most closely resembling sludge. Perhaps this affectation exposes the fundamental absurdity of the plot, an absurdity that is there in the original, but to which we there willingly surrender. Here, in 1999, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it's just silly.