White Mischief (1988)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Charles Dance plays the greedy, suave, lying cad. He's a marvelous actor. His features are handsome in an oddly distant way and his hooded eyes are the color of that watery blue you can sometimes see deep in the interior of glaciers. God, is he rotten. He was rotten in "China Moon," too, but in the less demanding part of a drunken wife beater in a trashy movie.The point of the story is made clear in the first few minutes. It's 1940 and London is being bombed. After a roll in the hay, rich Greta Scacchi and her paramour, rich Hugh Grant, must take shelter in the underground, and they are two lovely, fashionably groomed people, amid the sweaty crowd of mothers and children. The milieu doesn't stop them from making out. The simply ignore the misery around them.Scacchi is married to Joss Ackland, older, rich, and satisfied with only looking at his wife when she's naked. (She's magnificent, with or without clothes.) But he's in financial trouble. His vast country estate is in jeopardy and he takes his wife to Kenya to see to his far-flung cattle empire.Kenya, they find, is loaded with other rich white Englanders who pride themselves on the produce they ship to England during the time of her troubles. The fact that their patriotism enables them to take baths in pound notes doesn't occur to them.What does occur to them is to get laid as frequently as possible and with diverse partners. Charles Dance, the cad, quickly seduces the stunning Scacchi and they exchange vows of love. Everyone in "the colony" knows all about it. Dance does everything but roger her on the pool table at noon. But does Dance really mean it? He's been married twice before, both times to rich women, and shrugged them off. Now he seems intent on winning Scacchi and her substantial divorce agreement away from Ackland. Ackland, now humiliated and feeling Scacchi's increasing estrangement, hints that maybe he won't honor the pre-nup that assured her of a lifetime income. Clouds of antipathy darken the savannah. The cattle grow restless.If Dance is a suave cad, we can't be sure about Scacchi either. As they lie in bed, planning to run off together, she says, "But we haven't any money." "Well, there's my Army salary." And she turns from him to flick ashes from her cigarette and replies, "Yes," in the most unenthusiastic tones ever committed to celluloid.The photography, wardrobe, and make up are unimpeachable. It's a story about Africa that takes place more than seventy years ago and there isn't a lion in it. (We get a glimpse of someone's pet leopard.) No elephants. No native uprisings. Only a colony of rich dissolutes in the foreground and impassive black Africans serving drinks and holding spears, while someone goes mad and an empire dies.

This cynical drama set in pre-WWII colonial Kenya (where the lifestyles of the rich and decadent were enhanced by casual drug abuse and infidelity) presents a glossy but unfocused account of a May-December marriage of convenience, brought to a tragic end after one too many indiscreet liaisons between frustrated young wife Greta Scacchi and local Casanova Charles Dance. The film is based on a true story, widely reported at the time (in England, at least), and like its two lovers is cool and dispassionate and pleasant to look at. But the script makes the fatal mistake of sanitizing the illicit affair with feelings of true love, and because all the sex is conducted with such impeccable protocol the effect is more polite than shocking. Director and co-writer Michael Radford's script is full of barbed and witty dialogue, but re-writes history for a dramatically tidy (and quite bloody) resolution.

Based on the book by James Fox (not the handsome English actor of a certain age) this film remains hard to pin down: it's part murder mystery, part sociological study, part history of pre-WW2 East African colonialism, part romance, part dionysian orgy (really), part Evelyn Waugh/Somerset Maughm, part romance, part.... etc. etc. And it's all true.Yes, the actors are more spectacular looking than their real life counterparts (particularly Scacchi, seldom more stunning.) Sarah Miles' strange character wafts through as most memorable of all in a rich ensemble set of louche decadents. (And yet the actress in real life admitted she may not have gotten a handle on the real woman, just an impression. Based upon my reading of Fox's and Trzebinski's books' accounts on the Alice de Janze, I'd have to agree. Nothing like her except the memorable quips and woozy flair.) Plus, most folks who didn't swim through the primo decadence of the 1960's firsthand might be appalled at what passes for entertainment in British colonial East Africa of the 1930'/40s. But what you'll get for your treasure hunt (this is a hard film to find) is the truth of a murder mystery, weird but real characters, a slice of history, all against the gorgeous panoply of Kenya, despite all its troubles one of the most beautiful spots on the entire planet, all shot on location right where the real events unfolded.

The performances of Sarah Miles and John Hurt make this film worth watching; however it is disappointing that Michael Radford does not use the full storyline of the original film : "The Happy Valley" - made in 1987, nor is the source acknowledged in the credits. Other than that it is quite a good remake, but the original should not be missed, as the story continues for some length - indeed the end of "White Mischief" is about the halfway point of the story in "The Happy Valley". This is another of Radford's remakes that seemed to receive acclaim as if it were an original concept - just as his version of the tale of Pablo Neruda - "Il Postino" - was taken from the lesser known earlier film "Ardiente Pacientia" (Burning Patience) which for my money was the the better film.