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Graham Greene's novel of love and betrayal in the Vietnam of 1952 is once again set on the screen. Director Phillip Noyce (who also made the stunning "Rabbit-Proof Fence") did a lot of traveling, from Australia to Vietnam to do these films. In this version of The Quiet American, Michael Caine is the jaded British journalist in love with a younger Vietnamese woman (Do Hai Yen), but must compete with a younger American (Brendan Fraser from "The Mummy" films) who experiences love at first sight. The setting is Vietnam prior to the big American influx of troops and hardware. The Quiet American gives the word "covert" new meaning. The 1958 film had Sir Michael Redgrave as the newspaperman and Audie Murphy as the brash American, who was "quietly" effective.

The main storyline has Caine (Thomas Fowler) fairly set in his ways. He writes a story or two every once in a while and shares his apartment with the lovely Phuong (Do Hai Yen). Fowler's male secretary fairly runs the show, and it isn't until an American, Alden Pyle (Fraser) comes on the scene that Caine's cage is rattled. Now he must compete with a younger man who is in Vietnam on a mercy mission to save people's eyes. Ah, that does seem worthy, but Fowler begins to see that Pyle knows a bit too much about Vietnam to be a casual visitor. What is going on? Who is the mysterious General The (Quang Hai)? When Fowler finds out he might be sent back to London because he isn't contributing enough material, he begins prowling the countryside for information. This alarms Phuong's older sister (Pham Thi Mai), who wants Phuong married. All this against the lush jungle of Southeast Asia photographed by Christopher Doyle.

The Quiet American is basically a two-person film, or rather one-and-a-half. It is Caine's run most of the way, though Fraser does a good job of keeping pace. Still, when the camera centers on Michael Caine, the rest of the cast might as well pack it in and go home. Even the beautiful but solemn Do Hai Yen is window-dressing. Holmes Osborne ("Donnie Darko"), is in the film about one minute (thirty seconds at the beginning and thirty seconds at the end), and must have had most of his performance end up on the cutting room floor. The supporting cast is effective, including Pham Thi Mai as a woman with eyes like knives and Tzi Ma as a man with a secret. 

Just about everyone in The Quiet American has an agenda of sorts. The French were the hated Colonialists and the Americans weren't quite as hated, yet. When a car bomb explodes, it is though the audience is a by-stander and the effect is frightening. Politics and the people on the street sometimes don't mix, so then the words "collateral damage" come into play. You want to tell the people on the screen what is coming for them in about ten years time, but no one will listen. Their lives now are just quietly efficient. It's easy to trust someone such as the character Brendan Fraser portrays. He looks like a smiling, bumbling American who can't quite get the language. Even Fraser's body language, with a slight slump, looks governmental, but if you look hard, you see the real person.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner
Submitted 12/21/02

The new movie adaptation of Graham Greene's The Quiet American is one of those movies that I freely admit I don't get. It's not that I don't understand the film, but I don't understand the acclaim it's received from many critics. My friend Garth praised it as one of the best movies of the last year and thought Michael Caine's performance as Thomas Fowler was Oscar worthy. I found both to be just average. This is not, however, a case of Emperor's New Clothes, where I try to convince you that The Quiet American is, in fact, worthless where others see brilliance. Because I'm honestly not sure I'm right. Maybe it is a great movie and I just missed it. That happens sometimes, and critics would do their readers a favor if they admitted it more often. So rather than try to present a forceful argument for or against a movie that's left me befuddled, I thought I'd instead offer some thoughts, somewhat random, that have struck me as I've thought about it.

The film is set in mid-'50s Vietnam. The French colonial occupation is packing it up, and the early American presence is moving in. Fowler is a British journalist who's been coasting in Saigon for several years but now faces a summons back to the motherland if he can't produce some worthwhile (read "paper-selling") material. He's loathe to do that, however, as he's become attached to the city and the beautiful Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) who lives there. Besides, his wife is still in England. So he endeavors to get a scoop on the final days of French colonialism.

Then Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) shows up. He's a big, dumb American who's "here to help" as a medical aid provider (he's working on a cure for an eye disease). But there's something about Pyle that catches Fowler's eye, and he takes Pyle under his wing. That becomes complicated when Pyle falls in love with Phuong too, and even more complicated when he tries to steal her away.

Interestingly, Fowler is hardly bothered. It's not as if he wants the gorgeous Phuong to leave. Rather, he's so confident of her love that he doesn't take Pyle's threat seriously. And maybe this is where the movie started to lose me. Fowler is a man in his '60s. Suave, yes. With money, yes. But still he's a man who's 40 years older than his mistress. Along comes a strapping, young man who also has money and connections and an obvious desire to steal his woman. But Fowler doesn't bat an eye. I know 19th-century British men were born to rule, but this self-confidence seems out of place. Surely a man approaching his "golden" years would exhibit a little more self-doubt.

Then, of course, there's the unfashionable difference in Fowler and Phuong's ages. That and the cultural separation make the movie's sexual
politics seem more than a little outdated. It doesn't help that Do Thi Hai Yen is a gorgeous actress, one that we in the audience are meant to ogle on more than one occasion. Furthermore, her character is largely undeveloped, making her seem even more of a trophy, an object to possess and contemplate instead of a person to love and cherish. I hope I wasn't the only one in the audience who was squirming.

Of course, the movie is based on a Graham Greene novel, written back when an Asian woman might have struck the British fancy as more of an oddity than a full-blooded person. But just because you're adapting an older novel doesn't mean that you also have to adopt the book's politics. And if you do, should an audience accept those at face value or question their relevance instead? Fowler is clearly the film's protagonist, and his love for Phuong seems genuine. But his love is for an object, not a person, and that strikes me as a serious failing of the movie.

On the positive side, Brendan Fraser reminds us that his great performance in Gods and Monsters was not a fluke. He more than holds his own in his scenes with Caine and does a solid job of portraying a man who's a lot more complicated than he seems. Unfortunately, that plot twist is telegraphed early in the film, which drains much of the narrative's tension. Caine, of course, is fine, though it feels like a typical performance from him, certainly not award-winning. And the movie's production values are rich, with expressive, lush lighting and cinematography. It's almost as if the costume drama had moved ahead several decades, with all of its strengths and faults intact.

And maybe that's where my recommendation can fall. If you like costume dramas, I expect that you'll find much to like in The Quiet American. More khaki, less lace, but still the understated acting and outdated politics fans of the genre have come to love. 

J. Robert Parks  2/10/2003