Nick Nolte is the easy suspect in this situation, but though he doesn't work in the role he doesn't shame it, either. Nolte's source of interest as an actor is the interior life he brings along with parts, and it's an unmistakably modern quality. You can put him in the dress clothes, give him a Southern accent and provide all the violin lessons you want, but there isn't even a whisper of the 18th century statesman about him. Nolte never relaxes, either, and it makes his emotional liaisons with the various women in his life nearly uncomfortable to watch. And when Thandie Newton appears in the film as Sally Hemings, the slave who may have mothered four of Jefferson's children, the whole film tilts dangerously off balance.
Characters come and go throughout the film, popping in and out as stage devices.
There are a few minutes' amusement with Simon Callow, camping it up as a court dandy, followed by long minutes of tedium with Greta Scacchi as the object of Jefferson's romantic infatuation. The speaking cast numbers close to a hundred, filling up the screen and bogging down the film until it's as bloated and helpless as the desperate French nobility. For more information, click here .