Sabrina

Rating:
Summary: Good Romantic Comedy; tough remake
Review: "Sabrina" is a nice remake of a classic film (just invoking the names involved in the original -- Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, and Billy Wilder -- makes you wonder why anyone dared to remake it) . . . a nice romance filled with good, not great performances. "Sabrina" is a great example of what major Hollywood studios can do when things generally click -- it's a good little movie that (fortunately) doesn't seem to be trying too hard.

Essentially a retelling of the classic "ugly duckling" story, "Sabrina" focuses on the maturation of the title character (Julia Ormond, when Hollywood was still in love with her). Sabrina, the daughter of the chauffeur for the fabulously wealthy Larrabee clan, starts the movie as a dumpy little girl, watching the fantastic Larrabee Long Island parties from up in her tree through the world's most god-awful spectacles. Completely infatuated with the Larrabee's younger son David (Greg Kinnear, in a perfect role for him), Sabrina mistakenly confesses her feelings to the older brother Linus (Harrison Ford) before heading off to Paris for her education.

While in Paris, Sabrina works at one of those dream internships that people get in the movies - assisting photographers shoot models for magazine ads. Surrounded by beautiful, artistic people in a beautiful, artistic city, Sabrina finds herself and emerges as a gorgeous, sophisticated woman.

Sabrina returns to Long Island and promptly runs into David, who doesn't recognize her as the daughter of his chauffeur and shamelessly flirts with her even though he is engaged to another gorgeous woman, Dr. Elizabeth Tyson (Lauren Holly), who is just about too perfect for words. Linus, of course, being the businessminded drone that he is, instantly recognizes both Sabrina and David's infatuation with her.

This poses a problem -- Linus wants David to stay with Dr. Tyson, both for David's happiness (as he points out to David in a fun scene, "she won't be a burden") and because Elizabeth's dad Patrick (Richard Crenna) is in tense negotiations with Linus and the negotiations would go better if they are family. So Linus sets out to seduce Sabrina to keep her away from David -- after neutralizing David in a most creative fashion involving a champagne flute.

Of course, during his efforts to seduce Sabrina, the hard-hearted Linus, who has always been a tyrant of a businessman, even as a child, falls for Sabrina, too.

As you can see, a fairly predictable march through the numbers of romantic comedy. The movie's charm is in its execution. Director Sydney Pollack brings the best out of his talented cast, particularly Harrision Ford, who returns to the comic form he demonstrated in "Working Girl" but has been lacking in so many of his other efforts.

The only jarring note in the movie is Sabrina's over-insistence of bringing up Paris in every conversation. When looking at an old building on Martha's Vineyard, Sabrina inexplicably snots, "In Paris, they would consider that brand-new." While it's not surprising that she would return from Paris quite affected by the experience, at times in the movie it comes across as snobby rather than charming.

But this is a minor quibble. "Sabrina" is what it is -- an attractive comedy about attractive people falling in love in attractive settings by doing and saying attractive things. Not great, not inventive, not surprising, but pretty darn good.