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SIGNS & WONDERS Send This Review to a Friend
Despite the viable acting by Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsgard, "Signs & Wonders" is a boring love story set in Athens against the murky political background that doesn't come to the fore firmly enough to add a compelling dimension. Director Jonathan Nossiter, who co-wrote the ho-hum screenplay with James Lasdun, imbues the film with enough posturing to make it seem as if there is a measure of depth to the angst being expressed. There isn't.
Skarsgard plays Alec, a hopelessly egocentric businessman who thinks he can waltz in and out of the life of his American wife of Greek origin and their two children and keep an affair with his mistress going at the same time. There's a screw loose somewhere. Alec is under the delusion that he and his wife still have something powerful going and he looks upon various signs as indications that she wants him back. He also is shamefully manipulative with his impressionable daughter.
Rampling as Marjorie, the wife, does a credible job of indicating how her feelings for him have been shattered by his behavior, and she takes up with a new man, Andreas, played by Dimitris Katalifos, whose leftist stance in the past and persecution by the American-supported colonels who had taken power previously by a coup is brought into play. American Embassy officials are embarrassed by his plans for remembering the suffering of those who fought the dictatorship, and he is obviously in danger. But the theme that would be far more interesting than the love entanglements is not sufficiently developed.
Deborah Kara Unger moves amidst the romantic ruins as Katherine, the other woman. The scurrying about Athens provides scenic references for those who know the city and gives the film an authentic background. But it is difficult to care for either Alec, Marjorie or Katherine. Apart from a few moments in which the tension builds, there is the feeling of voyeuristically watching people better left to sort out their problems in private. From Strand Releasing.
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