“In its willingness to simply show people having feelings without talking about them, Ruba Nadda‘s Cairo Time (IFC Films, 8.6) is reminiscent of Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation,” writes Marshall Fine. “Yet, thanks to a marvelously nuanced performance by Patricia Clarkson and a smoothly engaging one by Alexander Siddig, we feel both the heat of the Egyptian desert and a warmth growing between these two people.
“The film lives and breathes through Clarkson. With her butterscotch hair, sleepy eyes and quietly husky voice, she’s [playing] a woman in full possession of herself — but one who longs to let herself go, even if just a little. It’s a stunning performance of many facets, in which Clarkson conveys as much in a look as many actresses struggle to reveal with overt histrionics.
“Cairo Time seduces the viewer with its beauty, with its wealth of emotion that doesn’t have to be discussed to be felt. It pulls you into another world so deeply that you are disappointed at having to leave it at the end.”
In other words, it’s an adult-romance chick flick that’s probably too subtle and intelligent to pull in the mainstream older-female audience that paid to see the last Sex and the City flick and can’t wait to see Eat Pray Love. What does the average over-30 female moviegoer think about heavy breathing with a good-looking Egyptian guy with a nicely trimmed beard? I wouldn’t know, but don’t you need to dispense giddy-giggly GTO humor and lush material fantasy to snag this group?
