Calling Ruba Nadda's effervescent story of a married American woman falling in love with another man and his home city (not necessarily in that order) a great vacation film isn't a veiled criticism. While the hallmarks of self-indulgence are everywhere - the protagonist's safely white-collar background, sumptuous travel photography - they are almost never acted on in a film that understands a truly great vacation is about discovering the new, not relaxing from the stresses of the old.
Patricia Clarkson, in a performance that flickers first like a mirage and slowly coheres into painterly art, plays Juliette, a New York editor of a woman's magazine who lands in Cairo expecting to meet her husband Mark (Tom McCamus), a United Nations worker. However, since Mark is delayed resolving a refugee camp crisis in the Gaza Strip, he sends his old friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to pick Juliette up at the airport and get her to the hotel.
Their relationship doesn't start off well. First Tareq is sidetracked by running into an old flame of his, Yasmeen (Amina Annabi), now very single and very obviously interested, and then he responds rather cuttingly to Juliette's observation about the enervating heat with, "that's the first thing all the tourists notice." But as Mark's delay in Gaza stretches from one day to several, and Juliette discovers exactly why she was cautioned against walking the Cairo streets by herself, she seeks out Tareq for companionship.
Nadda's episodic screenplay has the feel of something adapted from a novel of loose ends, where the characters' loose-jointed actions and thoughts were backgrounded by a running interior monologue. This jolting momentum keeps you at a distance initially, particularly with the tense silences radiating between Juliette and Tareq. But the filmmaker understands quite instinctively the seductive pull of the city itself and photographs it from the viewpoint of the beauty-ravished traveler. This river of images and sounds, the blaring din of traffic echoing through the jammed and dizzying streets, the helter-skelter souks wedged in among the grand structures, the man singing with tear-stinging grace in the incomprehensibly beautiful mosque, all serves to float the story right along with disarming ease.
Clarkson, an actress too rarely allowed the leading-lady spotlight, deserves much of the credit for holding our attention as she drinks in this new world. But Siddig is absolutely her equal in finding the perfectly subtle notes to play in this coyly romantic drama. With his slim and aristocratic mien, the Syrian-born Tareq - a one-time music student and now proprietor of a luxurious, men's-only coffeehouse which Juliette can't seem to stay away from - cuts through the urban sprawl like some prince of the city who has somehow missed out on his inheritance. Watching these two slowly (almost painfully) begin to see the other, as Juliette sinks into the city's languid embrace, is a greater joy than most modern romantic dramas can deliver.
While it can't be said that Nadda's film doesn't bear the trappings of cliche, but most of these moments (Tareq chiding the Westerner for her workaholic ways, for example) are quickly slipped past. And in the end, Nadda's instinctive understanding of the city's allure conquers all sins. You see it in the way the camera and Juliette together comprehend the dusky panorama of skyline and river outside her window; it's an intoxicating mix, less witnessed than inhaled gratefully, like the film itself.
Patricia Clarkson, in a performance that flickers first like a mirage and slowly coheres into painterly art, plays Juliette, a New York editor of a woman's magazine who lands in Cairo expecting to meet her husband Mark (Tom McCamus), a United Nations worker. However, since Mark is delayed resolving a refugee camp crisis in the Gaza Strip, he sends his old friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to pick Juliette up at the airport and get her to the hotel.
Their relationship doesn't start off well. First Tareq is sidetracked by running into an old flame of his, Yasmeen (Amina Annabi), now very single and very obviously interested, and then he responds rather cuttingly to Juliette's observation about the enervating heat with, "that's the first thing all the tourists notice." But as Mark's delay in Gaza stretches from one day to several, and Juliette discovers exactly why she was cautioned against walking the Cairo streets by herself, she seeks out Tareq for companionship.
Nadda's episodic screenplay has the feel of something adapted from a novel of loose ends, where the characters' loose-jointed actions and thoughts were backgrounded by a running interior monologue. This jolting momentum keeps you at a distance initially, particularly with the tense silences radiating between Juliette and Tareq. But the filmmaker understands quite instinctively the seductive pull of the city itself and photographs it from the viewpoint of the beauty-ravished traveler. This river of images and sounds, the blaring din of traffic echoing through the jammed and dizzying streets, the helter-skelter souks wedged in among the grand structures, the man singing with tear-stinging grace in the incomprehensibly beautiful mosque, all serves to float the story right along with disarming ease.
Clarkson, an actress too rarely allowed the leading-lady spotlight, deserves much of the credit for holding our attention as she drinks in this new world. But Siddig is absolutely her equal in finding the perfectly subtle notes to play in this coyly romantic drama. With his slim and aristocratic mien, the Syrian-born Tareq - a one-time music student and now proprietor of a luxurious, men's-only coffeehouse which Juliette can't seem to stay away from - cuts through the urban sprawl like some prince of the city who has somehow missed out on his inheritance. Watching these two slowly (almost painfully) begin to see the other, as Juliette sinks into the city's languid embrace, is a greater joy than most modern romantic dramas can deliver.
While it can't be said that Nadda's film doesn't bear the trappings of cliche, but most of these moments (Tareq chiding the Westerner for her workaholic ways, for example) are quickly slipped past. And in the end, Nadda's instinctive understanding of the city's allure conquers all sins. You see it in the way the camera and Juliette together comprehend the dusky panorama of skyline and river outside her window; it's an intoxicating mix, less witnessed than inhaled gratefully, like the film itself.
