Shady Rich People in Europe Caught Up in Small Stakes Crime

Patricia Highsmith has been done before. Seriously, the world renowned crime writer has been adapted multiple times by talented people. The wealthy good looking schemer Tom Ripley, arguably her most famous creation, has popped up in films from the 1960’s to the early 2000’s. Great actors like John Malkovich, Matt Damon, Dennis Hopper, and Alain Delon have all portrayed the dastardly yet suave criminal. Legendary directors like the late Anthony Minghella, the auteurist Rene Clement, and the masterful Alfred Hitchcock have all brought Highsmith’s novels to the silver screen. So now it’s 2014 and Hossein Amini has written and directed an another adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel that takes place in Post-War Europe and centers around devious and untrustworthy rich people. Sound familiar? For those acquainted with Highsmith’s work this is the expected logline. So what’s new about this movie filled with the hollow glamour of American expatriates on the Mediterranean? Not much, but it sure is nice to look at.

It’s actually hard to look away from the Two Faces of January. The film starts with the ruins and temples of greece splayed out in sunlight and backdrops of oceans and mountains filling each shot with the picturesque. From the very first shot it’s obvious that director Hossein Amini and cinematographer Marcel Zyskind want to seduce the viewer with the rustic imagery of Greece. Their film succeeds in capturing the ancient exoticness that is the Mediterranean country in the 1950’s even though at its core lies a flimsy small stakes crime story.

The basic gist of the story follows hustler-cum-tour guide Rydal Keener (played by the still underrated Oscar Isaacs) as he meets the seemingly upper crust couple of Colette and Chester Macfarland (played by Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortenson, respectively). Rydal, Colette and Chester have dinner one night and everything seems just dandy until the couple go back to their hotel room. In the room they’re confronted by a private investigator from the States sent to retrieve money swindled from certain unnamed ‘clients,’ (gang related) by Mr. MacFarland. The two men have words, a gun appears, and the private investigator is killed via accidental blunt trauma to the head. But not before Rydal enters the scene to return a bracelet for Colette, witnesses the whole crime and eventually becomes accomplice to Chester by helping return the P.I. to his room.

Rydal is then roped into helping Colette and Chester sneak out of Greece undetected by authorities. This premise sets up a lot of tension early on in the film, but quickly loosens up as the trio go from scene to scene. It really just seems as though Rydal, Colette and Chester are inconvenienced by going the long way out of the country instead of taking a direct flight. They have to ‘dodge’ authorities, but all that entails is making as little eye contact with the local police as possible. The real tension lies in a love triangle that forms between the trio of expatriates. From the very first shot of Colette, Rydal can’t take his eyes off of her and Chester’s aware of the attraction. It’s unclear if the feelings are mutual for Colette herself, who goes as far as saying Rydal is ‘nice,’ and that’s why she ‘likes,’ him.

These two tensions play off each other unsuccessfully for the whole movie. The love triangle pins Rydal and Chester against each other. The escape from Greece plays on screen like an uneventful road trip across a couple islands and some mountains. Rydal, Colette and Chester’s affections for each other are made compelling by each character’s actor, but the sneaking around comes off as an after thought to an accidental crime. All this culminates in a series of mutual deceptions by Rydal and Chester that deviates from the original plot in Highsmith’s novel. The ending may be branded a bit too ‘hollywood,’ in it’s use of a dying confession, and the film tapers off just as it started: drifting through Grecian ruins, except this time they’re gravestones instead of temples.

Rating: [Find a Matinee on the weekend] Nothing new, but well acted and directed.

Now playing at Landmark Sunshine Cinema and AMC Empire 25