I think a failure that’s trying to tell the truth is much more interesting than something that’s a successful lie.” They lie, and that, I think, is damaging. “I know this sounds like such basic tripe,” he admits, “but we have to know ourselves better and accept ourselves, and I think movies can do that. Luis remains blissfully happy-until Julia disappears with all his money.Īt its core, Cristofer says, “Original Sin” is a love story “about facing the dark side of yourself as well as the light side, and understanding that human beings are made of both things.” Immediately struck by her sultry beauty, Luis accepts Julia’s account of why she sent him someone else’s picture, and they are married. Cuban businessman Luis Vargas (Banderas) prepares to meet his mail-order American bride, but when Julia Russell (Jolie) steps off the boat, she bears no resemblance to the plain woman in the photograph he’d received. This dynamic underscores “Original Sin,” the MGM release that opens today. I’m trying to make films that entertain, but I have to go with what I know and what I feel and what I think is the makeup of people-and I see people who are aware of their sexuality and deal with it and who are aware of death and deal with it and who have an understanding about love or who pursue an understanding of love.” I’m not making films that preach to anything. “These are things that we as a society pretend don’t have anything to do with us. “I think we’re in denial about sex, and we’re in denial about death and we’re in denial about love,” he said in a recent interview. Rather, he says, sexuality is an intrinsic element of the tales he’s telling. Nevertheless, Cristofer contends that he’s not out to deliberately flaunt sex as an attention-grabber. Ours is a reactionary culture, and the fear of sexuality is rampant in American society.”Ĭristofer has confronted what he perceives as that fear head-on in each film he has directed, from the 1998 HBO movie “Gia,” which catapulted Jolie to stardom, to 1999’s “Body Shots,” a look at the after-hours antics of a group of twentysomething urbanites. “And as soon as you have a guideline, there’s a reaction to the guideline. “The guidelines don’t help,” the director said. Steadfastly opposed to any ratings system, Cristofer carefully chooses his words, aware of the controversy surrounding the subject. This film is about sexual obsession, and I had to cut, for my money, just too much of the sex.” “I know they don’t like to be called censors, but they are. of America’s insistence that he make cuts in order to achieve an R rating. “I got nailed by the censors,” he reports of the Motion Picture Assn. The writer-director of “Original Sin,” which stars Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas, is as passionate discussing the challenges he faced in telling a story with strong sexual content as his on-screen characters are while making love. She turns out to be a cigar-smoking grifter with a sinister sexual past, cleaning out her new husband's bank account and going on the run, with Antonio in pursuit.In a summer film season teeming with futuristic, special effects-driven stories aimed at children-of all ages, perhaps-is there room for an erotic thriller based on a novel by one of the fathers of film noir? Michael Cristofer is counting on it. Set in the stately, genteel world of late 19th-century Cuba with its picturesque servants and visits to the "stews", the movie has Banderas as a wealthy plantation owner who - implausibly - advertises incognito in the press for a wife, and gets Angelina, smouldering away in a demure Laura Ingalls Wilder outfit. For what it's worth, moreover, millions of furtive Lara Croft fans, pre- and postpubescent, may well feel they've got their money's worth in the right old certificate-18 seeing-to Angelina gets in one revealing bedroom scene.īut this thriller soon unravels into a peculiarly un-erotic, un-exciting sort of silliness. A softcore sex thriller starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas - it sure does sound like good box office to me, and for a while, Original Sin seems like it's going to be a reasonably entertaining romp.