The Duke's� An Ideal Husband Review June 29/99

Saw The Red Violin last night before work, An Ideal Husband tonight. I have to get the small ones out of the way for this weekend's trio of 3,000 screen debuts. I went to see it because I adore Minnie Driver and Cate Blanchett, two of the most talented and gorgeous actresses on the silver screen
today. You Brits should be proud for producing such a fine pair.

One problem, though, they weren't the focus. More of AIH was about Rupert Everett and Jeremy Northam's characters, which I knew going in, but was still disappointed just the same. I have no problem with movies that involve no action and consist of intelligent dialogue, which An Ideal Husband mostly contains. However, much of it is told with little depth and emotion, leaving me bored
for much of the tale. At one point I checked my watch (which is always a bad sign) and thought, "It's only been 40 minutes!" It surely had to be longer, but nope, there was much more to go.

To be fair, Husband peaked my interest more after the first hour, but I don't want to wait that long for the movie to establish the characters and situations.