Charade remake ends up working a little too hard

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This article was published 25/10/2002 (8463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHARADE, the classic 1963 caper film from Stanley Donen, featured Paris in all her glory, a silver-haired Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn dressed by Givenchy.

Who would be foolhardy enough to try a remake? Maybe director Jonathan Demme, whose last undertaking was a stubbornly ambitious adaptation of Beloved, the camera-resistant novel by Toni Morrison.

Demme is smart enough to take a sideways run at the original Charade, something he signifies with a title change. He has shifted from Donen’s high style and gorgeously romantic vision of the City of Light to the fast, fresh approach of the French New Wave and a seedy but chic view of the Parisian underworld.

Demme has also — very wisely — not even attempted to replicate the casting or chemistry of the historical Hepburn-Grant pairing.

Mark Wahlberg is no Cary Grant — but he doesn’t try to be, relying instead on his easy-going, athletic, all-American appeal and the fact that he looks fabulous without a shirt. Thandie Newton has some of Audrey Hepburn’s ability to project luminous innocence, but her character is written very differently.

The results of all this tinkering are engaging — especially in the jaunty first half — but not entirely successful. Any film that’s trying to get by mostly on playful charm — we have, for example, legendary chansonnier Charles Aznavour suddenly appearing out of nowhere and serenading people — needs to keep things zipping right along. The Truth About Charlie ends up being dragged down by a needlessly long and complicated middle section.

Newton plays Reggie, who flies in to Paris to find her new husband Charlie dead, their apartment and bank account cleaned out, and several picturesque factions — including the French police, an American bureaucrat, and a trio of not-so-scary bad people — suddenly interested in her and what she might know about some missing money.

And then there’s her new friend Joshua (Wahlberg), who seems just too good to be true, always ready with a helping hand or a tango dance or a baguette and a bottle of wine.

The much-interrupted romance between the two leads is a pleasure to watch. Newton is, after all, the woman who managed to thaw out Tom Cruise in M:I2, so imagine what she can get up to with Marky Mark Wahlberg, onetime Calvin Klein underwear model.

The whom-can-you-trust storyline is sparked by some strong supporting performances, including Tim Robbins’ sly wink to Walter Matthau (who played the deadpan American attach in the 1963 version) and Christine Boisson as police Commandant Dominique, a weary, sad-eyed, chain-smoking humanist. (Imagine an Inspector Maigret who looks good in a short skirt.)

Paris still manages to steal a lot of screen time from the human actors, with night scenes of down-at-heel elegance and overcast, street-level explorations of flea markets, narrow streets and neighbourhood cafes.

If only Demme had managed to pick up a little more of that je ne sais quoi from his chosen location.

The Truth About Charlie wants to be effortless fun, but it ends up working too hard.