I suppose that those trashy Harlequin romance novels must go something like this. Ridiculous dialogue, steamy locations, lurid sex… Hey, maybe I should read some of those things... Well, why bother when there are movies like Original Sin? One used to have to sneak into the local adult bookstore’s back room, hoping someone from your church doesn’t recognize you while you’re there, in order to get movies like this. Okay, I’m probably exaggerating a bit (like I'd really have any idea about such things, anyway... ahem...), but if you need a soft-porn fix, you could just stream this from Netflix or iTunes or someplace (assuming your home computer’s parental controls don’t prevent you from accessing such… material…). After all, Angelina Jolie probably made a lot more money for doing this stuff than Jenna Jameson ever did doing her stuff...
But I digress. What we have here is Antonio Banderas as Luis, the owner of a coffee producing operation in late 19th Century Cuba. These are still the days of the plantation owner being the King of his kingdom, and Kings need heirs. So, handsome devil that he is, he for some reason chooses to purchase a mail-order bride (maybe there weren’t any girls of the marrying sort in Havana in 1899). The picture his bride-to-be from America, Julia, has provided is that of a plain girl, so imagine his pleasant surprise when Angelina Jolie gets off the boat. Julia claims she didn’t want to be wed to a man who would only want her for her looks. Sad Luis, however, is hopelessly in lust at first sight, so he is forced to confess that he is not a clerk at the coffee house as he stated in his letter to her, but the owner. “It seems we have something in common, then - neither of us is to be trusted,” she smirks. Oh, what a great omen this is.
The rest of the film is mostly a highly convoluted case of is-she-or-isn’t-she, as in out for his money, although I’m yet to figure out how Julia knew he had money before she got there. Anyway, the tale is told through a series of flashbacks, with Julia telling her story to a monk while in a prison cell awaiting execution, and I promised I haven’t spoiled anything by telling you that. The two protagonists chase each other across Cuba in several different directions, catching up to one another on occasion to have wild lovemaking in some of the more graphic sex scenes you’ll see outside of adult bookstore’s back room. The villain of the piece is also one of the stranger cats you’ll find in a movie, and yet in comparison to the “good guys” here, he stacks up just about the same.
Maybe I should clarify myself a bit; I’m not saying this movie is a stinker. There are movies that are so bad that they’re enjoyable, but this isn’t the case here. Quite the contrary, it’s well-made and lovely to look at. I’m merely saying that it’s well-made and lovely-looking trash. If one must indulge in trash, it should at least be of high quality, and this is definitely trash of greater than garden-variety. Written for the screen and directed by the Michael Cristofer, the screenwriter of smart movies such as The Witches of Eastwick and Falling in Love, it would have been a surprise had this not been good in at least a technical sense.
I understand the novel upon which this flick was based was also the basis for Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid, but I’ve not yet caught up to that, so while it would be easy to guess that any Truffaut movie to be worthwhile, I certainly can’t swear to that. That flick could very well be as convoluted as this one. The uncertainty of the story is a bit frustrating, as the premise mostly doesn’t hold any water, but the fun here, somewhat disturbed fun that it may be, is in watching these very attractive people go through these melodramatic predicaments and uttering their overly-dramatic dialogue. How can one not admire an actor who has the gall to recite, with great vitriol, lines such as “If I were to kiss you, would I taste her there, too?” to another male actor? It’s simply amazing, like watching a multi-car highway accident would be.
Antonio Banderas is pretty much always interesting onscreen, regardless of what he's doing, and Angelina Jolie ten years ago was definitely incredibly easy on the eye sockets, so the flick has those things going for it. Were it not for the marvel of home video, I never would have seen this “masterpiece,” and while I’m glad it didn’t cost me any real money, I really didn’t mind wallowing in such well-made trash for a couple of hours. All that said, though, I'm certainly glad that I didn’t have to go out in public to do so.
But I digress. What we have here is Antonio Banderas as Luis, the owner of a coffee producing operation in late 19th Century Cuba. These are still the days of the plantation owner being the King of his kingdom, and Kings need heirs. So, handsome devil that he is, he for some reason chooses to purchase a mail-order bride (maybe there weren’t any girls of the marrying sort in Havana in 1899). The picture his bride-to-be from America, Julia, has provided is that of a plain girl, so imagine his pleasant surprise when Angelina Jolie gets off the boat. Julia claims she didn’t want to be wed to a man who would only want her for her looks. Sad Luis, however, is hopelessly in lust at first sight, so he is forced to confess that he is not a clerk at the coffee house as he stated in his letter to her, but the owner. “It seems we have something in common, then - neither of us is to be trusted,” she smirks. Oh, what a great omen this is.
The rest of the film is mostly a highly convoluted case of is-she-or-isn’t-she, as in out for his money, although I’m yet to figure out how Julia knew he had money before she got there. Anyway, the tale is told through a series of flashbacks, with Julia telling her story to a monk while in a prison cell awaiting execution, and I promised I haven’t spoiled anything by telling you that. The two protagonists chase each other across Cuba in several different directions, catching up to one another on occasion to have wild lovemaking in some of the more graphic sex scenes you’ll see outside of adult bookstore’s back room. The villain of the piece is also one of the stranger cats you’ll find in a movie, and yet in comparison to the “good guys” here, he stacks up just about the same.
Maybe I should clarify myself a bit; I’m not saying this movie is a stinker. There are movies that are so bad that they’re enjoyable, but this isn’t the case here. Quite the contrary, it’s well-made and lovely to look at. I’m merely saying that it’s well-made and lovely-looking trash. If one must indulge in trash, it should at least be of high quality, and this is definitely trash of greater than garden-variety. Written for the screen and directed by the Michael Cristofer, the screenwriter of smart movies such as The Witches of Eastwick and Falling in Love, it would have been a surprise had this not been good in at least a technical sense.
I understand the novel upon which this flick was based was also the basis for Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid, but I’ve not yet caught up to that, so while it would be easy to guess that any Truffaut movie to be worthwhile, I certainly can’t swear to that. That flick could very well be as convoluted as this one. The uncertainty of the story is a bit frustrating, as the premise mostly doesn’t hold any water, but the fun here, somewhat disturbed fun that it may be, is in watching these very attractive people go through these melodramatic predicaments and uttering their overly-dramatic dialogue. How can one not admire an actor who has the gall to recite, with great vitriol, lines such as “If I were to kiss you, would I taste her there, too?” to another male actor? It’s simply amazing, like watching a multi-car highway accident would be.
Antonio Banderas is pretty much always interesting onscreen, regardless of what he's doing, and Angelina Jolie ten years ago was definitely incredibly easy on the eye sockets, so the flick has those things going for it. Were it not for the marvel of home video, I never would have seen this “masterpiece,” and while I’m glad it didn’t cost me any real money, I really didn’t mind wallowing in such well-made trash for a couple of hours. All that said, though, I'm certainly glad that I didn’t have to go out in public to do so.
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