Considering that Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has a name like Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (in truth, a name that’s even longer in the form of Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck), it can be no great surprise that he is a man who appreciates glamor. But not just glamor–the labor it takes to “be glamorous” (which no one truly is without the right lighting, makeup and bank statement amount). Being a director of this sort, it makes sense that four years after his more “arthouse”-friendly Oscar-winning debut, The Lives of Others, von Donnersmarck went in the direction of old school Hollywood glamor with 2010’s The Tourist.
Though the film was universally panned, with the most telling critique being Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus, “The scenery and the stars are undeniably beautiful, but they can’t make up for The Tourist‘s slow, muddled plot, or the lack of chemistry between Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie,” it feels like this was the last time we really saw “the cinema” attempt to harken itself back to the glory days of the medium (at least while also being set in a contemporary time frame; any other “glamor” movie is always set during WWII [see: Allied]). When people were pretty and so was every backdrop that surrounded them. Barring Bond films, it’s very difficult to recall another commercial movie with American actors that made the same grand attempt at aesthetic inveiglement as The Tourist, whose “muddled plot” was co-created by von Donnersmark, Christopher McQuarrie, Julian Fellowes and Jeffrey Nachmanoff.
As for the accusation of Depp and Jolie having no chemistry in their roles as Frank Tupelo and Elise Clifton-Ward respectively, well, people are always accusing Jolie of not having chemistry with her onscreen matches. It’s the curse of being too beautiful to convey emotion. And besides, maybe she exhausted all the chemistry she had with Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
The thing about “spy” or “heist” movies, in any case, is that the eventual “big reveal” of the third act is never all that surprising–or it’s just so utterly obvious as a go-to plot device that you find yourself feeling foolish for believing that anyone could wow you with a twist other than Alfred Hitchcock himself. At the very least, however, Hollywood, after proving itself to be the evil, Svengali-filled entity of Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon proportions, could, at the bare minimum, try to make some effort in serving what’s left of its audience a little bit of fucking elegance–silver screen enchantment. But no, the industry has fallen prey to “realness,” showing us people who look and live just as ordinarily as we do. This, however, was never the intention or design of Old Hollywood, brought to fruition precisely because of how humdrum and lackluster real life is in comparison to what we at one point saw as a means to an escape that now only feels like a mirror.
That the film opens on Elise enjoying her inexplicably decadent life of dressing in couture that includes arm-length gloves and tailored skirts, paired with mornings spent eating croissants while reading the paper immediately infers that she’s not the sort of woman to fall for just any man’s yarn. Only the type that could swindle a gangster out of roughly two billion dollars. Which is precisely what Alexander Pearce, the man who has been in hiding while Elise continues to evade her responsibilities as an agent with the covert ops sect of Scotland Yard, managed to achieve while working as a gangster’s accountant. Obviously, she feels spurned by his absconding, but can’t resist his instructions delivered by a courier as she sits at the cafe knowing full well she’s being observed. Told to board a train and choose a man with his height and build, Elise obeys, a prisoner to her own not so dormant emotions.
The man in question is Frank, a dowdy, somewhat nebbish math teacher from Wisconsin who’s about to take in a lot more than just the old canals of Venice. Ah, and that’s where things become even more glamorous, with von Donnersmark wielding the strange city as the ultimate stage for exquisiteness in the way we don’t even know to expect anymore, in this present cinematic age of the Marvel movie, where all backdrops are mostly manufactured anyway.
But no, von Donnersmark dared to take on the challenges of an “international” movie, as Hitchcock did with the French Riviera-based To Catch A Thief (by far one of the pinnacles of his penchant for highlighting elegance and sophistication in his actors, costumes and set designs). And while, sure the remake of The Italian Job in 2003 attempted to do the same with the support of Venice as a setting, it was far too filled with action to be considered overtly glamorous. No, The Tourist offers us a train ride from the outset for Christ’s sake. A train–the last bastion bastion of twentieth century greatness. Along with people who read books (which Frank does), drink wine and have an actual conversation. It is after their ride together that the spark between them is ignited, with Elise suddenly not so sure she wants to see Alexander, after all, for as she tells Frank over dinner, later that night after inviting him to join her at the Hotel Danieli (again, glamor), “I don’t like being summoned, but it felt even worse not hearing from him for two years.” There it is, the old tug of war between heart and head that only women seem to bear the brunt of.
As Frank grows more attached, he realizes that whatever pawn he might be serving on Elise and Alexander’s chess board, he’s willing to. For it’s worth the risk and danger to spend time with a woman as exhibitive of class and poise as Elise. And who can blame him, really, when taking into account that most women, regardless of weight, seem perfectly content to don garb with elastic waistbands and/or a Made in China tag?
With the hunt for Alexander escalating, it’s natural that von Donnersmark includes a gala in the spirit of Venetian masked balls as part of the third act leading up to the big reveal that turns out to be not so shocking (it’s more “gasp-worthy” in that Scooby-Doo conclusion sort of way). Here costume designer Colleen Atwood’s brilliance is allowed to shine at its brightest, with Jolie showing up to the spectacle in a handmade black gown that Atwood stated was intended to be “really feminine, that harked maybe to another time and elegance, but didn’t take away from the necklace. It framed her face and body beautifully.” Edith Head would have been proud.
So yes, The Tourist does transport you to another realm (as movies were once supposed to), one in which people don’t dress like shit, form complete sentences and exist in places besides New York and Los Angeles.
