Sabrina
Sabrina: a girl who climbs trees, hides under cars, and skitters around corners. She is poor at stealth, but very charming. She is naturally elegant and refined, but tends to get into the silliest trouble. She is exceedingly dramatic and prone to crying and pining in the middle of the night, but talk about gorgeous! She is a 2-year-old black cat with double paws and two white spots on her tummy. Hmmm? What was that? This is supposed to be a review about Sabrina, the 1954 film? Dang. Let me just rent it quickly…
Like most films we review here for Film Club, Sabrina was a blind spot for me (I swear! I have seen a lot of movies!!!). I was excited about Hepburn, whom I can’t help but adore, and so-so on Bogart, who sometimes hits the mark for me and other times feels nothing but false. As for director/co-screenwriter Billy Wilder, it’s hard to not get excited for one of his films (well, we could talk about my distaste for Double Indemnity [1944], but maybe some other time…). All in all, this was looking to be a pretty decent viewing experience, and I would say that the film pretty much met my expectations, though I found the story itself to be a bit infuriating in that pre-feminist Hollywood sort of way.
In the film, Hepburn’s Sabrina positions herself as the main figure in a romantic tragedy a la Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, dir. Max Ophüls) her ceaseless unrequited love is so great that one may wonder if she was more infatuated with the act of pining than William Holden’s David, who has less than nothing to offer her in terms of charm, or common human decency. Sabrina goes to Paris and transforms herself (as Hepburn’s characters seem to frequently do), into a more desirable woman (I guess? I mean, she seemed pretty stunning from the outset), and catches her beloved’s eye. Enter the “noble businessman,” David’s older brother, Linus (Bogart) whose plan to rid the family of Sabrina, just long enough for David to tie the knot with a sugar tycoon’s daughter, involves him courting her and tricking her into wanting to run off to Paris with him… which is odd, convoluted, and ultimately unnecessary. Sabrina puts it best herself when she remarks, “how very inconvenient for you, such a busy man, having to waste so much time to get me on a boat.” Eventually, Linus, who has been gradually falling in love with Sabrina, wins her… or rather, settles upon her, in the end. Yeah, I wasn’t too pleased with the course the film took. After her “transformation,” Sabrina’s characterization stops and it becomes a Bogart film. I know it’s expecting a lot to want a female lead to realize her worth compared to the idiots around her, but I don’t even believe that Linus has adequately redeemed himself by the end of the picture. Don’t settle for scum, girl. You’re Audrey Freakin’ Hepburn!
The film’s lead performances are strong enough, but Hepburn is by far the heavy hitter. She brings it all to this role: childishness, comedic melodrama, sophistication, and deep sadness. It’s a multifaceted performance that, in my opinion, outshines the words in the script. Bogart is fine as the character with the moral journey, though I continue to struggle to find anything particularly talented about him. The best part of the film that involved Linus was him mansplaining carbon monoxide to Sabrina, oblivious to her understanding of the most basic mechanics, and the self-awareness of the moment certainly came from the script over the performance. I can think of a dozen other actors who could have pulled that moment, and all of the others would have pulled it off better. William Holden is such an absent figure throughout much of the film, and the audience doesn’t get many opportunities to settle on his character. Is he a cad? A buffoon? A sensitive brother? I suppose he’s a little of all of these things and not much of anything. Despite the weaknesses in the male lead performances, they are more than made up for in a stellar supporting cast. From the servants of the Larrabee house to the characters that Sabrina meets in her Parisian cooking school, there is an abundance of charm and comedy generously swirled throughout the omelet that is Sabrina. “New egg!”
Overall, my reaction to Sabrina is mixed-to-positive. While the comedic elements of the film were delightful, and Hepburn was as spellbinding as ever, the entire premise of the film is so stuck in its time that it’s nearly impossible to truly appreciate the film as it was intended to be. I wanted to love this film, but I think for my Hepburn fix in the future, I might just stick with Roman Holiday (1953, William Wyler). In closing, I would like to leave you with the gift of a mini-drinking game: take a drink any time Sabrina behaves just like my cat sister, Sabrina (or, I suppose, any cat you wish). You may be surprised by how often you reach for your glass! You’re welcome. – Bailey (⛵🐈)
Once Upon a Time… Four little words with so much meaning behind them, priming the viewer (or reader) with expectations for the fairy tale to unfold. But should we ‘read’ Sabrina as a light fairy tale or as a darker cautionary tale? In hindsight one can easily argue for a combination of both… I went into the viewing of this month’s Film Club Pick, Sabrina, with an open mind and expecting a lighthearted romantic comedy, but those expectations were quickly dashed as the film came across as a much more serious and moodier film than I had remembered.
On the surface, Sabrina is a ‘romcom’ about a young woman who ‘grows up’ and eventually gets over her first crush (perhaps an oversimplification of the plot, but you get the idea). Yet, the film is far darker than the romcom elements would suggest. Themes of suicide, women’s “roles” in society, and class issues overshadowed the lighter elements throughout the film. It struck me how often ‘women’s issues’ are marginalized, dismissed, downplayed, and easily mislabeled as ‘romcom’ films, whether the film is truly ‘romantic,’ or ‘comedic,’ or not…
Not every issue that a woman faces should be turned into comedic fodder or automatically makes a film a “romantic comedy.” Women’s issues should be given equal respect and seriousness and not turned into perpetual jokes and disguised or misrepresented as ‘chick flicks.’ Are viewers simply meant to forget Sabrina’s (Audrey Hepburn) suicide attempt when she is whisked off to Paris and plopped into cooking school at ‘Le Cordon Bleu?’ Are we not supposed to wonder how her father reacted to her suicide note, which she slipped under his door the night before her departure? And are we just supposed to accept her easily transferred affection from David Larrabee (William Holden) to his older brother, Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart)? I think not.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Sabrina. Audrey Hepburn is delightful as Sabrina, and Billy Wilder’s influence can be seen in the witty dialogue (but seriously, why is Wilder so hung up on suicides and mid-life crises?). While Hepburn is great, the rest of the cast leaves a lot to be desired… The weakest link in the film is Humphrey Bogart, who just does not jive well with the rest of the casting and the storyline. (Besides, ever since I found out some time ago that Cary Grant was supposed to be cast opposite Hepburn in the role of Linus, I cannot ‘unsee’ Grant in the role, so much so, that I cannot really appreciate this film anymore.) Sure, Bogart was cast against type, and does a decent enough job, but he still manages to feel like a fish out of water when cast away from his typical roles as a cynical private eye, gangster, or criminal on the run.
Bogart simply plays every scene too seriously, to the point that you begin to question the sincerity of his character. Even as annoyed as I was by the way Sabrina’s suicide attempt is glossed over, it becomes a truly weird moment of bonding when Linus reveals he had spent time on the ledge of his building, presumably thinking about jumping. These lines, exchanged on their boat ride, are delivered with so little emotion, I found myself wondering whether it was an attempt at a fabricated story meant to connect with Sabrina, or if the character was genuinely attempting to be sincere? Either way, Bogart played the character as too aloof and austere, to the point that you really do not know what Sabrina could eventually see in him.
Even the glamorousness of the costuming and old Hollywood aesthetics couldn’t really improve my esteem of this film, given the weak points in the plot. By the end, I truly found myself rooting for Sabrina to ditch Linus, by simply moving back to Paris, and eventually setting up her own restaurant and becoming independently wealthy… (A girl can dream, can’t she?) The clichéd class divide, via the ‘romantic’ set up between Sabrina, the chauffeur's daughter, vs. David/Linus, being wealthy bachelors, proved to be rather stale and tiresome. I get that the film was going for ‘fairy tale’ vibes, but to constantly throw Sabrina’s lack of so-called social ‘status,’ and ‘wealth,’ in her face was beyond irritating. There is no way that they could fix this issue within this story… Or is there?
I could not sit down to watch Sabrina (1954) without also re-watching the film’s remake this month… I simply couldn’t help myself! And while I know that the remake was not part of our Film Club selection this month, and that remakes are usually worse than their predecessors, I still watched the film anyway, and was pleasantly surprised! The Sabrina (1995, dir. Sydney Pollack) remake, which I used to dislike, I now find to be a rather refreshing romcom with updates that make the storyline considerably more tolerable, and enjoyable, than the previous film. The focus of the film shifts from Sabrina (Julia Ormond) to Linus (Harrison Ford, who gives a more playful and nuanced performance than Bogart), but gives Sabrina far more agency over her life choices than the 1950s film. For example, Sabrina does not attempt suicide over David’s (Greg Kinnear) self-centeredness and is not made over by a wealthy ‘duke’ in Paris, but instead has now landed an internship at Vogue and learns how to dress and present herself all on her own. Apart from a minor fling with a photographer in Paris, Sabrina is allowed far more room to mature as an individual without meddling or stifling patriarchal influences. Additionally, in a bit of a twist ending (more akin to the conclusion of the 1953 play, Sabrina Fair, by Samuel A. Taylor, upon which both movies are based) Sabrina’s father reveals a rather important monetary secret that changes their so-called ‘status’ and negates the class divides that plagued the former adaptation. As characters in the remake often feel the need to point out, this is the “90s” after all…
Fairy tale, or not, it is undeniable how iconic Sabrina (1954) has become, particularly given Audrey Hepburn’s rise to stardom coming off her breakout role in Roman Holiday (1953, dir. William Wyler), which was released one year prior to this film’s debut. While I enjoy some of the lighter aspects of the film, particularly some of the witty quips and romcom tropes, I found Sabrina to be too divided in its tone. Are we supposed to take the suicide attempt and references in the film seriously? Are we supposed to suspend our disbelief and accept that Hepburn would wind up with the much older Bogart (there is, after all, a 30-year age difference between these two leads…)? Or is the film simply a frivolous fantasy with little to no substance? I’ll let you be the judge as I queue up the remake for another revisit. – Sarah 🥂
What did you think of Sabrina? Have you seen the remake? Share your thoughts in the comments below and be sure to check back soon for our June Film Club Pick!
Copyright © 2021 Sarah Crane & Bailey Lizotte
