FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
THE QUIET AMERICAN
DVD Features: Languages. Commentary by: Noyce, Caine, Fraser, Ahrenberg, Horberg, Hampton,
Actor Tzi Ma, Executive Producer Sydney Pollack & Interpreter and Advisor Tran An Hua.
Additional Footage: Anatomy of a Scene (Sundance Channel) and Original Featurette.
Vietnam Timeline. Original Book Reviews.
An idealistic notion that rescuing a beautiful Vietnamese woman can also
save her war-torn country drives two men to vie for her affections in 1952
Saigon. Cynical and aloof London Times correspondent Thomas Fowler
(Caine) has taken a young American aid officer, Bostonian Alden Pye
(Brendan), under his wing. Soon after meeting Fowler’s much younger
mistress, a former dance hall girl named Phuong (Yen), Pye confesses his
love and tries to woo her away with the dream of coming to America–an
offer the married Fowler can’t provide. Meanwhile, fighting escalates, with
the French readily blaming the Communists for civilian massacres.
Despite the setting, the political upheaval has little dimension.
The film provides no insight into the Vietnamese fight for independence, let
alone its internal struggle with communism, and why the American
government felt there was so much at stake in this Cold War backwater.
And the relationship between docile Phoung and her suitors remains too
undeveloped to feel anything more than what it is--opportunistic, especially
since Phoung can barely speak English. Her character is so stereotypical that
you might expect her to say, “Me so horny.” Without the romantic and
historic heft, it is only Caine’s meticulous performance--at once charming,
then threatening--and Fraser’s earnestness that hold the film together.
DVD Features: The Vietnam timeline is a helpful background summary. Caine’s
commentary offers fascinating anecdotes on his Korean War experience and
counters the charge that the film is anti-American. But even The New
Republic’s 1956 book review, “The Blundering Ineffectual American,”
criticizes “The thinness of all the characters except Fowler.” KT
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