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'The White Countess': A classy period piece

"The White Countess," the final collaboration between director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant (who died last year), is set in Shanghai in the mid-1930s — a city as cluttered with intrigue, black-market enterprise and displaced persons as Bogart's Casablanca.

Sony Pictures Classics 'The White Countess' B- The verdict: Classy period piece has an impeccable cast, but tends to move slowly. Sometimes too slowly. Director: James Ivory Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Lynn Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, John Wood Run time: 135 minutes Release date: Dec. 21, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for some violent images and thematic elements. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The White Countess'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Among them is Countess Sofia Belinsky (Natasha Richardson), a Russian émigré whose aristocratic family has fled the Communists and now lives in severely reduced circumstances in a Shanghai slum. Working as a taxi dancer/hooker, Sofia supports the family, which includes her vacant, culture-shocked aunt and uncle (Vanessa Redgrave, Richardson's mother; and John Wood), her envious sister-in-law (Madeleine Potter) and her ever-critical mother-in-law, Olga (Lynn Redgrave, Richardson's aunt). The thanks she gets for doing this dirty work is Olga's utter contempt.

But Sofia has an admirer, too: Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), a former U.S. diplomat who was once called "the last hope for the League of Nations." Now, he's a disillusioned cynic whose plan to create a perfect world means creating the perfect bar.

Blinded by a terrorist bomb that also robbed him of his family, Todd is determined to find a safe place away his past, his future and the outside world (which includes the impending chaos of a Japanese invasion). When a win at the track enables him to realize his dream, he invites Sofia to be the club's hostess (and heart) and names it the White Countess in her honor. Because, as he elegantly puts it, "History has no place for her anymore."

And, by implication, for him.

The acting couldn't be better. Along with an air of Chekhovian resignation and an impeccable accent, Richardson somehow gives herself a broad Slavic brow. Fiennes plays Todd as a man who rejects his blindness as vehemently as he rejects the changes that have misshaped his world. If she is resigned to her losses, he's ironic and self-loathing. Yet infinitely gentlemanly towards her.

"The White Countess" isn't on a level with Merchant-Ivory masterpieces like "Howards End" and "A Room With a View." One reason is, we never feel the affection for or connection with the White Countess we feel for Rick's place in "Casablanca." Another problem: The film lacks urgency (translation: it's slow). A little "Play it, Sam" showboating might've helped, but then, showboating was never the Merchant-Ivory style.

Best appreciate it for what it is: a literate, well-acted, tasteful reflection on the necessity of change — something the partner-less Ivory must now face, too.