THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)

For 2 hours and 39 minutes, you can feel the writer-director, Anthony Minghella, straining for a masterpiece, a swank literary Casablanca. In the North African desert on the eve of World War II, a Hungarian count (Ralph Fiennes) develops a cautious attraction to a married aristocrat (Kristin Scott Thomas). Fiennes comes on as a sexily severe matinee idol, and Scott Thomas matches him swoon for swoon. But the film keeps cutting away to the Italian countryside, where Fiennes, now an incinerated phantom, lies in an abandoned monastery, dreaming of what was. It's as if the drama were being engulfed by its own framing device. For all its bitter romantic anguish, The English Patient ultimately coalesces in your head rather than your heart.

You Might Also Like

• Movie Review THE ENGLISH PATIENT (Nov 15, 1996) | Owen Gleiberman
• Video Review The English Patient; Truly, Madly, Deeply; Mr. Wonderful | Ty Burr
• Features Air Bawl
• In the Works 'PRIDE' GOES BEFORE A BALL (1996)
• Holiday Movie Preview WAR & REMEMBRANCE (Nov 15, 1996) | Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
• Parents' Guide ANOTHER FIENNES MADNESS | Jessica Shaw