MOVIE REVIEW : Soulful Christie Binds ‘Fools’

The best reason to see “Fools of Fortune” is for Julie Christie’s great, brief performance as Mrs. Quinton, the English wife of a prosperous Irishman (Michael Kitchen) who is murdered, along with their two daughters, by the British Black and Tans.

Based on William Trevor’s 1983 novel, and directed by Pat O’Connor, the film, which begins in 1920 in the Edenic Irish countryside of Kilneagh and spans 20 years, has a core of outrage; it’s about how Mrs. Quinton’s son Willie (Iain Glen) is destroyed by the massacre and then resurrected by vengeance and, finally, love.

Without Christie, whose role is tantalizingly brief, “Fools of Fortune” would have only its outrage to bind it. The time sequence is often fragmented and confusing, and Willie’s spiritual odyssey never takes hold. Clearly he was intended as a sacrificial Irish saint--his agonies are emblematic of what the British have done to Ireland’s soul. His redemption, through the love of an English girl (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) who was once his childhood playmate, and with whom he has a daughter, is emblematic too.

But Willie never makes the transition from symbol to real person, and so his torments, as well as his capacity for love, lack the resounding passion that, no doubt, was intended.

If the film seems to belong to Mrs. Quinton rather than to Willie, it’s only by sheer force of talent. Christie is on screen for perhaps 20 minutes, but in that time she makes the transition from a wife and mother sustained by the sensuous ease of country life to a haunting woman whose spirit has been fractured by terror.

I can’t think of an actress of Christie’s generation who has aged more magnificently, and she has the gift of great actresses to make her looks seem infinitely various. The sharp, sculptured look she has at the beginning of the film gives way to a ravaged weariness. Her taut radiance becomes a death mask. In Christie’s performance, the film locates its true soul and deepest meaning.