Campy

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2009)

Director Girard likes classical music and campy cinematic set-pieces. If you like either -- particularly the set-pieces: hoary, over-the-top grifts and costume dramas -- you'll probably enjoy this film. The sound won an Oscar, presumably for Joshua Bell's lovely, beautifully recorded playing of John Corigliano's derivative violin music; the compositions themselves aren't very interesting. The stories feature a 17th century tarot card reading, an orphanage run by monks high in the Austrian alps, an opium-stocked Edwardian lord whose fiddling makes Greta Schacchi swoon and her prose definitely purple, and one of those high-end auctions where folks call in on the phone and the auctioneer keeps saying "Fair warning" in a plummy English accent. It's a showy film, not arty or especially clever, but it's interesting enough for an evening at home.