The Quiet American: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

Why so quiet? Why the secrets about love?

(Originally published 2002)

"The Quiet American" begins in Saigon in 1952. That's the first sign of trouble.

It's twilight. In the foreground is a river and in the background is the city, stretching low along the waterfront and glowing gold. Barely visible along the horizon are missiles lighting up the summer sky as they slam into unseen targets. Like corks, they pop.

Over this surreal fizz comes the voice of Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), a British correspondent for the London Times who's in Saigon to cover the French colonial conflict and--eventually and unwittingly--the full weight of the Vietnam War.

"I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam," Fowler says as the bombs drop and the river sparkles. "But at night, there's a breeze and the river is beautiful."

That is, of course, until Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an ungainly young American from Boston, is mysteriously stabbed to death and tossed into the river, turning it red with his blood.

Director Phillip Noyce, working from a script Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel, lingers on the wound in Pyle's back before he reaches into the past to uncover how it got there.

In an extended flashback, Noyce chronicles how Pyle met Fowler, how the two men befriended each other over tea at the Continental Hotel, and how they eventually came to fight for the affection of Fowler's mistress, Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), a beautiful Vietnamese taxi-dancer Fowler saved from enslavement.

Following the book, Phuong is meant to symbolize her country. She's beautiful, sensual, slightly mysterious, slightly wild and objectified by many. Like Vietnam, men are willing to die for her--and they do.

Obviously, since no good can come from such a romantic triangle, it doesn't.

Unlike Joseph Mankiewicz's 1958 adaptation of the book, Noyce, an Australian, doesn't sugarcoat Greene's prescient story or his suggestion that sometimes Americans aren't always where they ought to be. Indeed, as Greene saw it, a wealth of good American intentions can occasionally lead to disastrous results, a connection to the present that will undoubtedly resonate with some.

Deftly balancing its politics with its personalities, "The Quiet American" is a first-rate, human drama with real power that was one of last year’s best films.

Grade: A