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IMDbPro

The White Countess

  • 20052005
  • PG-13PG-13
  • 2h 15m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
6.7K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
16,077
2,035
Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)
Home Video Trailer from Sony Pictures Classics
Play trailer1:55
2 Videos
38 Photos
DramaHistoryRomance
Set in 1930s Shanghai, where a blind American diplomat develops a curious relationship with a young Russian refugee who works odd -- and sometimes illicit -- jobs to support members of her d... Read allSet in 1930s Shanghai, where a blind American diplomat develops a curious relationship with a young Russian refugee who works odd -- and sometimes illicit -- jobs to support members of her dead husband's aristocratic family.Set in 1930s Shanghai, where a blind American diplomat develops a curious relationship with a young Russian refugee who works odd -- and sometimes illicit -- jobs to support members of her dead husband's aristocratic family.
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
6.7K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
16,077
2,035
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • James Ivory
    • Writer
      • Kazuo Ishiguro(original screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Ralph Fiennes
      • Natasha Richardson
      • Vanessa Redgrave
    Top credits
    • Director
      • James Ivory
    • Writer
      • Kazuo Ishiguro(original screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Ralph Fiennes
      • Natasha Richardson
      • Vanessa Redgrave
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 84User reviews
    • 67Critic reviews
    • 60Metascore
    • Awards
      • 2 nominations

    Videos2

    The White Countess
    Trailer 1:55
    The White Countess
    The White Countess
    Trailer 1:57
    The White Countess

    Photos38

    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes, James Ivory, and Luoyong Wang in The White Countess (2005)
    Natasha Richardson and Madeleine Daly in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes, Christopher Doyle, and Po Wing Ho in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, and Natasha Richardson in The Remains of the Day (1993)
    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in Howards End (1992)
    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, and Madeleine Daly in The White Countess (2005)
    Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson in The White Countess (2005)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Ralph Fiennes
    Ralph Fiennes
    • Todd Jackson
    Natasha Richardson
    Natasha Richardson
    • Countess Sofia Belinskya
    Vanessa Redgrave
    Vanessa Redgrave
    • Princess Vera Belinskya
    Lynn Redgrave
    Lynn Redgrave
    • Olga Belinskya
    Madeleine Potter
    Madeleine Potter
    • Grushenka
    Madeleine Daly
    Madeleine Daly
    • Katya
    John Wood
    John Wood
    • Prince Peter Belinsky
    Allan Corduner
    Allan Corduner
    • Samuel Feinstein
    Timur Engalychev
    • Feinstein Child
    Lucy Sutton
    • Feinstein Child
    Amir Maimon
    • Feinstein Child
    Itay Eltahan
    • Feinstein Child
    Dan Herzberg
    Dan Herzberg
    • Frenchman
    Aislín McGuckin
    Aislín McGuckin
    • Maria
    • (as Aislin Mcguckin)
    Dong Fu Lin
    • Taxi Dance Hall Manager
    • (as Lin Dong Fu)
    Da Ying
    • Kao
    • (as Ying Da)
    Terence Harvey
    Terence Harvey
    • Walters
    Jeff Harding
    Jeff Harding
    • Company Director
    • Director
      • James Ivory
    • Writer
      • Kazuo Ishiguro(original screenplay)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The Countess' (Natasha Richardson) family included her real-life mother Vanessa Redgrave and aunt Lynn Redgrave.
    • Goofs
      The story takes place in 1936, but a US 50-star flag is featured at the racetrack. This should have been a 48-star flag.
    • Quotes

      Sofia: If you have any objections, kindly go to hell.

      Todd Jackson: You tell 'em!

    • Connections
      Featured in At the Movies: Fun with Dick and Jane/Cheaper by the Dozen 2/Rumor Has It/Casanova/Wolf Creek/The Ringer/The Countess/Hoodwinked (2005)
    • Soundtracks
      The Tolstoy Waltz
      Written by Lev Tolstoy

      Performed by Imogen Cooper

      Recorded by Jonathan Summers

      Courtesy of British Library Sound Archive

    User reviews84

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    Wonderful cast let down by dreary direction
    Sorry to say that despite the incredible pedigree of everyone concerned, this film was disappointing. It is beautifully shot and designed, with all the elegance and taste that one comes to expect from Merchant-Ivory, and of course the literary sensibility seems even more marked due to the scripting by Kazuo Ishiguro.

    But the film is lifeless. It has plenty of aesthetic style but it has no momentum or vigor. The very accomplished performances by a truly wonderful cast are somewhat wasted when the pace is so glacial and the overall sense of film-making seems so stodgy and fatigued.

    I am reminded of how frustrating I found, years ago, Merchant-Ivory's adaptation of Ishiguro's REMAINS OF THE DAY to be, despite again a stellar cast. I know there are people who would disagree strongly with me, but all the fascinating tragic interior sense of the butler's thoughts that made the book so absorbing and moving could not be communicated in a motion picture, no matter how talented an actor Anthony Hopkins is, so we wound up spending a couple of hours looking at a great actor nearly expressionless as he worked so hard to make his proper and repressed character neither register any emotions on his face nor express any in what he said.

    Here again we have the same problem. There are huge emotions under the surface here, but because of the foreground sense of repression (and because of the cool-to-the-point-of-leisurely-and-moribund film-making style) we wind up watching Ralph Fiennes do his own version of Hopkins' "sorry, I can't say or feel or show anything because my character is supposed to be so repressed" act.

    Granted, these are essential, trademark issues in Ishiguro's work. But it seems that without the vivid interior turmoil so eloquently expressed in his prose to help illuminate the character's stoicism, the result on screen is just....bland. Natasha Richardson fares much, much better, since her character need not be as repressed. And her performance is stunning. And John Wood makes the most out of what is essentially a TWO-LINE role(!!).

    Actually, the whole Russian family is handled as a tour-de-force by the acting ensemble, and probably would have been enough to really put this picture over-the-top had not the fatally inexpressive scenes of Jackson and Matsuda ballasted the work into such a torpor. Some of this heaviness is admittedly inherent in Ishiguro's script, but I sense the very same words could have been imbued with the same gravity without nearly the somnambulent wooziness Ivory has made out of them.

    I am an unabashed fan of Merchant-Ivory's work, and am saddened by the recent death of Ismail Merchant. The team of Merchant/Ivory/Ruth Prawer Jhabvala/Richard Robbins has created some real cinematic milestones. Two of the Forster adaptations are masterpieces, and many of the Indian films are rare gems. So I'm not one of those who find this dynasty to be too "artsy" or whatever other criticisms have been leveled at them by impatient filmgoers.

    Yet "impatience" is indeed what I ultimately felt with this plodding execution. It was a frustrating experience, not the least because I could see how close Ivory was to achieving what he must have wanted to achieve, and how hard everyone must have worked to create that sense of Shanghai on the eve of its tragic invasion by the Japanese. It has all the elements of a great epic, but fails to become one due almost completely to the weirdly anemic sense of passionless, momentumless, drearily uninspired film-making.
    helpful•60
    24
    • MCMoricz
    • Jan 2, 2006

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 31, 2006 (United Kingdom)
    • Countries of origin
      • United Kingdom
      • Germany
      • China
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Merchant Ivory Productions (United States)
      • Sony Classics (United States)
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
      • Mandarin
      • Russian
    • Also known as
      • 異國情緣
    • Filming locations
      • Shanghai, China
    • Production companies
      • Merchant Ivory Productions
      • Sony Pictures Classics
      • Shanghai Film Group
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $16,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,669,971
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $46,348
      • Dec 25, 2005
    • Gross worldwide
      • $4,092,682
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 15 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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