It has the patina of class: a historic-romantic
setting, a rising young star, elegant delivery and collaterally
"importance." But it's a perfect bait-and-switch, sizzle standing in
for steak, for Tales of Red Vienna by David Grimm is at
base not much more than a chicklit romance with some rather old fashioned ideas
to sell you.
It
starts in Vienna in 1920. Newly widowed Heléna Altman (Nina Arianda) comes
home from the funeral service from her military,
missing-in-action-presumed-dead husband. (We don’t know this quite yet, the
details will be filled in later; right now we see a woman in mourning black
enter her darkened house in silence.) She has a man with her. Later we’ll learn
his name is Béla Hoyos (Michael Esper). For the moment, though, he has
no name. He is, for lack of a better word, a client. She lets him fuck her,
cruelly, quickly and without undressing, on the heavy living room table.
Disgusted with herself, with the act, she pulls away from his touch thereafter.
But she accepts the money, which she clearly needs badly, that he puts on the
table before he leaves in silence, before she breaks down and cries, feeling
humiliated and broken.
In
the next scenes, after quite some time has passed, we see her more normal life,
with the maternal servant Edda (Kathleen Chalfant) who
tends to her; and currying the favor of her snobbish friend Mutzi (Tina
Benko) who is both solicitous and threatening, a well-placed society woman
who would all too easily ruin Heléna’s reputation if motivated. And we soon
discover that Tina has herself been currying the favor of a young man she
fancies: Béla. At first Heléna fervently hopes that Béla will not recognize
her. But of course he does (secretly). Though in time he reveals that he does,
and reveals as well that he is smitten with her. That he wants to have a real
relationship with her.
The
creep-out factor is given enough lip service for decency, but oh guess what?
Béla is witty and glib and charming. And sincerely romantic. And Heléna begins
to fall for him. And Mutzi begins to wonder why he has become so distant to
her. And then ... well do I really have to tell you who shows up to well and
truly turn an already turbulent existence into a collision of mixed agendas
(and feelings)?
As
directed by Kate Whoriskey and acted by its more than
capable cast,Tales of Red Vienna is compellingly trivial, like the
sensationalistic and dispopsable Lifetime movie it so clearly ought
to be (with a large and sadly all-too-recognizeable dollop of A Doll's House
thrown into the mix at the denouement). And you watch it with the same
kind of well-there's-nothing-else-on fascination (or resignation).
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