Looking For Family

Rating: 6/10 (17 August 2012)

Like one reviewer, I too thought the ensemble acting of the British cast--the family especially--was the strong foundation, particularly when the plot became predictably noir. Chris, in a sense, is in love with the family, and not just for the wealth. Although we know nothing substantial about his past, he seems starved for relationships that are durable.
The pairing of Chris and Nola as characters on the make is well conceived. Both apparently have talent that has never been fully realized--or just enough talent to frustrate their hopes of shaping a career with that talent. I thought Scarlett's portrayal of the would-be actress was more convincing, since one could readily see why she wouldn't succeed. The character of Chris, however, seemed more a patchwork, with personal tags (Dostoyevsky, opera) that theme well with the plot. Utterly unbelievable was his supposed prowess as a tennis player; his strokes are little better than the all-arm loopy swings of those he is teaching. It helped that those scenes were out of the way early. Once he in the affair, his conflicted impulses make him more interesting and more believable. I appreciate the fact that he's not entirely a Ripley, Patricia Highsmith's amoral climber.
...which reminds me that Hitchcock used tennis to better effect in another Highsmith film, Strangers on a Train.