neumu [ cinematronic ]




	The Cherry Orchard
	Michael Cacoyannis Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates, Katrin Cartlidge, Tushka Bergen, Michael Gough 2000		Fine actors — among them Charlotte Rampling ("Under the Sand"), Alan Bates ("Gosford Park"), Katrin Cartlidge ("No Man's Land") and Tushka Bergen — seem adrift and lackluster in a drab movie version of Chekhov's bittersweet play, set in 1900. Rampling is emotionally damaged Madama Lyubov Ranevskaya, who left her family's Russian estate after the drowning death of her son. Five years later, Lyubov's daughter Anya (Bergen) comes to Paris to bring her destitute mother back home. Lyubov's brother (Bates), her adopted daughter Varya (Cartlidge), and other relatives and friends await them, but the decaying Ranevsky property, complete with glorious cherry orchard, may have to be auctioned to pay the family's debts. (Cue distress, gnashing of teeth, recriminations....) Veteran director Michael Cacoyannis ("Zorba the Greek") tinkered with the original, trying to open it up by adding Parisian exteriors to a dreary intro and going outdoors to locales near the family estate. But not much enlivens the dismal air of it all.