Dir.
Guy Ritchie, 2002, UK/Italy, 86 mins
Cast:
Adriano Giannini, Madonna, Bruce Greenwood, Jeanne Tripplehorn
Arriving with a heavy baggage of what is perhaps best described as anti-hype, Guy Ritchie's update of Lina Wertmuller's cult Italian comedy skulks out on DVD and video with a certain morbid curiosity value.
Madonna plays Amber, a bitchy rich socialite enjoying a Mediterranean cruise with her equally vacuous husband and friends. She sneers, swears and whines throughout the trip, while taking pleasure in the ritual abuse of the boat's crew, particularly the "poor but happy" fisherman Giuseppe (Giannini). Things take a predictably dramatic turn however when an early evening expedition ends in disaster, and Amber and Giuseppe find themselves - yes - swept away to a deserted island. The couple start off tearing at each other's throats but, after a couple of lessons in domination and the joy of the simple life, they find themselves falling in love and caught up in their own island paradise.
Inevitably Swept Away isn't quite as bad as its preceding reputation suggests; it's just soporifically ordinary. The tone switches from the jaunty comedy of Ritchie's previous films - all stylistic tricks, upbeat score and over-acting - into romantic melodrama by the film's conclusion, but it stumbles most crucially in creating any believability in the central relationship. Mrs Ritchie, somewhat questionably, learns a lesson in respect with the aid of a couple of slaps, a near-rape and being forced into calling her former servant "Master", and the subsequent romance fails to unearth the barest trace of chemistry. At the same time the underlying themes of love and power and the gulf between ecology and capitalism ring as hollow as the relentlessly unsympathetic characters.
You would perhaps think Ritchie would be more at home depicting the rich and successful than small-time East End hoodlums, but without his gangster whimsy (and the criticism that Ritchie is somehow fake for being a rich kid living out cockney crime fantasies seems a little unfair when you remember how inventive - and successful - Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch actually were) Swept Away simply comes across as rather dull. The apparent public desire to see Ritchie fail spectacularly isn't entirely satiated - the cinematography of shimmering blue water and golden sunsets is fittingly impressive, while the narrative at least flows fluidly without the hallmarks of a troubled production. Nevertheless if you want an interesting take on the island romance genre, you're best off rewatching Nicolas Roeg's Castaway; meanwhile we shouldn't be too surprised if Ritchie's next venture is a revisit to his cockney wonderland.
Matt McAllister
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