rps-2
This is a beautiful and understated film. The plot is simple but the impact is huge. This has to be a woman's work, I thought, as I watched it and sure enough it was both written and directed by Ruba Nada. Patricia Clarkson is superb in her low key portrayal of Juliette Grant, a middle aged North American wife left alone in Cairo when her husband is delayed. The pace is languorously slow. The photography is rich and warm. It is a film of tiny and careful brush strokes rather than broad swipes and splashes. Ultimately the plot goes nowhere. But somehow that is the very real strength of this wonderful, artful film. I have been a frequent harsh critic here of Canadian movies. This is a refreshing exception.
Danusha_Goska Save Send Delete
"Cairo Time" is inept and inert, a criminal waste of talent and material. Alexander Siddig is handsome and charismatic as Tareq, an Egyptian café owner who shepherds a married American tourist, Juliette, (Patricia Clarkson) around Cairo. Patricia Clarkson is beautiful and wears her many dresses well. The film's publicity compares it to "Brief Encounter." Not a chance. There is no chemistry between Tareq and Juliette. This is the fault of Ruba Nadda's lifeless script and direction so inert you wonder if she has fallen asleep behind the camera and the actors are too polite to wake her. There are shots of the pyramids. There are scenes where characters stroll through an exotic bazaar, smoke hookahs, and dance at a wedding. There is a scene where men harass Juliette on the street. Juliette almost seems to like it; this takes on an ugly tone in the wake of the notorious Tahrir Square assault on Lara Logan. There is an entirely gratuitous scene that depicts Israelis in a negative way. Remarkable, because the film has no plot to speak of, but the director managed to work in her prejudices. These scenes ramble without reaching any point. There is zero dramatic tension. You don't wonder what's going to happen next – you pretty much know that *nothing* is going to happen next. "Cairo Time" is an extraordinary waste of talent and material. Alexander Siddig is a charismatic star. I wish he had been given something, anything, to do. There is so much potential in the material. Say something about a potential romance between a Muslim man and an American woman. Say something about the potential of extramarital love. Say something at all! The film never does.
Claudio Carvalho
Juliette Grant (Patricia Clarkson) travels from America to Cairo to meet her husband Mark (Tom McCamus), who belongs to the high echelon of UN and is settling refugees in Gaza. On the arrival, Juliette is welcomed by Tareq Khalifa (Alexander Siddig), an Egyptian that had worked with Mark and now is retired. Mark has a problem in Gaza and can not come to Cairo, and the gentle Tareq invites Juliette to sail in the Nile and visit the pyramids. Juliette learns that she can not walk alone on the streets of Cairo since she is offensively harassed by the male locals, and she sightsees the city with Tareq. The proximity with her husband's friend and his attention to her make Juliette too attracted for Tareq. Will they have a love affair? "Cairo Time" is a delicate and sensitive romance about companionship evolving to romance for mature audiences. Immediately after watching this pleasant film, I said to myself: this is certainly a film directed by a woman
and I was right. The sensitiveness of the director and author Ruba Nadda is impressive."Cairo Time" has magnificent cinematography and locations and the underrated Patricia Clarkson is excellent and with a perfect chemistry with Alexander Siddig. The music score is very beautiful and the conclusion of the affair of Juliette and Tareq is stunning. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Meus Dias no Cairo" ("My Days in Cairo")
evanston_dad
Patricia Clarkson gives a quiet, lovely performance in this quiet and lovely film.A sort of modern day mix up of two David Lean films -- "Summertime" and "Brief Encounter" -- "Cairo Time" stars Clarkson as the wife of a U.N. worker who's stuck by herself in Cairo when her husband is detained by peacekeeping business. Her husband's former employee acts as a sort of tour guide/body guard for Clarkson, who finds the dangerous city both fascinating and scary for a single American woman. The time to herself, the exotic atmosphere and the attentions of a handsome gentleman cause her to reflect on her situation in life. With grown children and a husband who the movie implies has kept her waiting far more than once, Clarkson's character gets a small glimmer of what it would be like to have something all to herself.This isn't a whiny, feel-sorry-for-myself-because-I-no-longer-have-my-youth story that movies seem to be all to full of these days. Clarkson is a confident, smart woman who does not in the least regret the decisions she's made. She's simply reached a point in her life where she has to think about what's next for her, and to be allowed to watch her explore the possibilities in a place as enigmatic and beautiful as Cairo is a real pleasure.Grade: A-
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