听 User Rating 
Contains mild violence, peril and sex references
Despite being directed by James Ivory and produced by the late Ishmail Merchant, The White Countess feels like a pale imitation of a Merchant-Ivory film. Set against political upheaval in 30s Shanghai, Ralph Fiennes delivers a typically stoic performance as a blind American diplomat who cloisters himself from reality with the help of an exiled Russian countess played by Natasha Richardson. A shared sense of tragedy breeds intimacy between them yet these demons are always kept at a polite remove.
When we first meet Fiennes' Jackson, he's still coming to terms with his blindness. Likewise, novelist-turned-screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro leaves us to stumble around in the dark. It's apparent that Jackson has experienced something awful, but exactly what that is remains a mystery for the most part. Instead he talks whimsically about opening the perfect nightclub with the countess Sofia as "his centrepiece", all to keep the nastiness of the real world at bay.
"NO URGENCY OR EMOTION"
Meanwhile it's hinted that Sofia is forced to prostitute herself, but this dilemma is never properly addressed and Hiroyuki Sanada loiters in the background as someone who may or may not have a hidden agenda. A series of revelations and realisations drop like dominoes in the last twenty minutes along with a salvo of Japanese bombs. But unfortunately the finale doesn't have the urgency or emotion that would have resulted if the previous two hours were spent properly dissecting the characters. Fiennes and Richardson ably hold the screen for that time and it's a lusciously painted canvas, but in the end, The White Countess leaves you blank.
