Deja Vu . Newcity Chicago . 05-03-98

Deja Vu

DIRECTED BY: Henry Jaglom

REVIEWED: 05-03-98

I'm a sucker for films that follow dark-haired women as they wander around a bit, then fall into adventures of their own devising: "The Wizard of Oz," "Gone with the Wind," or, more recently, "Vagabond" and "When the Cat's Away." (It helps if a few scenes are set in France.) "Deja Vu" is as good as none of these, but I endured much of its annoying chat and "Love Boat" supernaturalism because I was so taken with its lead actress, Victoria Foyt, who co-wrote the film with her husband, director Henry Jaglom. As Dana, Foyt is ripe and beautiful, with flesh softened by age but firmed by fancy Estee Lauder serums which I imagined lining her bathroom sink next to bottles of Obsession and Coco. She might even look better now than she did twenty years ago, walking the market stalls of Tel Aviv in a snug black jacket and pants, buying goods for her fiancé's store back in L.A. It's in a Tel Aviv cafe that she meets another beautiful, even older Frenchwoman who tells her the story of the love of her life and then vanishes, leaving behind a custom-made pin which spurs Dana to fly to Paris, and then through the Chunnel to Dover. As she wanders along the white cliffs, she passes a man standing in the grass, painting. She saw his face in Paris, she approaches him with self-conscious giggles, they feel a connection, this is incredible.... Wait! this is crazy, we can't. Dana scurries on to London to rendezvous with her fiancé at a friend's house, but other forces are clearly -and doggedly-at work. (By Dana and Sean's third "coincidental meeting" I had to wonder if it was truly shock or simply lack of imagination that drove each to gasp, "Oh my god, what are you doing here?") Vanessa Redgrave dons a cap and smokes a cigarette, and looks dapper enough as she advises Dana to follow her heart. But her own refusal to care for her elderly mother wisely raises the specter of shirked responsibility amid all willful conversion of fancy to Fate.

--Ellen Fox

Capsule Reviews
Deja Vu
Deja Vu
Deja Vu
Deja Vu

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