Cairo Time

Overview

Beloved character actor Patricia Clarkson (High Art, Pieces of April, The Station Agent) finally steps onto centre stage in Ruba Nadda's luscious Egyptian love story. Actually 'love story' doesn't do Nadda's screenplay nearly enough justice, for what she creates is a mature and sophisticated portrait of an affair, and one that is exquisite in its restraint.

Clarkson plays Juliette Grant, an American magazine editor and wife of a United Nations refugee worker who travels to Cairo in order to reunite with her long absent husband Mark (Tom McCamus) and visit the pyramids. Waylaid in Gaza, Mark sends his friend and former colleague Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to collect Juliette and play tour guide, but now thrown together, the pair develop an attraction that deepens into the heady question mark of an affair.

Nadda is truly spoiled for choice in both her setting and the performances of Clarkson and Siddig. She cannily embraces a certain postcard exoticism in her visuals, but then knowingly uses Alexandria and its ancient pyramids to achieve the film's emotional climax. It's a masterful mix, which also makes the most of Clarkson's graceful good looks and her wonderful comic timing.

With echoes of the classic Roman Holiday, Cairo Time is a must see for armchair travelers and lovers of romantic dramas alike. Shining its titular city to a high gloss but providing dramatic substance (and the superb Clarkson) to boot, this is a film to fall in love with.