Unrated, 1 hr. 53 min. Directed By:
Billy Wilder. Release Date:
Sep 9, 1954. DVD Release
Date: Apr 10, 2001.
It’s rapidly becoming official. I’m starting to get what the big deal about
Audrey Hepburn is. I’ve wondered for
years, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve only her in one movie to date, which of
course was Breakfast At Tiffany’s,
the second movie in this year’s running project introducing me to the
classics. I thought she was great in
that movie, but in Sabrina she was…
well, I’m not sure what the word is, but she was absolutely perfect.
When this popped up on my list of
recommendations, I realized why the title was familiar after doing a bit of
research and coming up with the 90s remake:
I’d seen the remake on a Greyhound bus traveling between Port Elizabeth
and Johannesburg, South Africa. There
are only a few major cities in South Africa, and the distances between them are
fairly large, so when you travel by charter bus, they enetertain you by
throwing movies at you the whole time.
So, I had a good idea what to expect.
I knew the story, but I’d never seen
it done this well. Hepburn and Bogart
brought all the charm that Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford failed to bring to
the big screen. I had worried that this
would be silly, like Breakfast At Tiffany,
and while Sabrina is lighthearted, it
is definitely not silly. Is it more than a little unbelievable? Yeah, but literature is filled with similar stories: children of a wealthy patron falling in love with the children of one of their servants, so we can afford to let that pass. I have to wonder that feminists don't have a problem with this movie because Sabrina, as a character, is completely defined (1) primarily by her relationships with the men in her life, and (2) when they try to give her an identity of her own, she ends up as a cook. Somehow her dad could send her to Paris for what I assume was years, but we're left with the assumption that it wasn't possible, or in her best interests, to send her to college for a business degree, or to law or medical school. And, at the crux of things, this is another Heburn "fashion template" movie... but maybe I'm just too cynical.
I would easily recommend this movie to anyone. I wouldn't be watching it with the guys, but I might watch it with the fam. It's an easy story, and the characters are all generally likable. If you're kind of mean, like me, you can laugh at how the filmmakers were unable to hide how short Bogey was, because he's always getting towered over by the men, and he's barely taller than the tiny Ms. Hepburn. However, the movie also has several pretty funny moments of its own, with my personal favorite being Bogart dressed up a college cardigan and a hat that made him look like a cross between Baby Huey and the Good Humor man.
