This movie is a remake of the original "Sabrina" from 1954 and it shows. I haven't seen the original movie yet, but I've got the feeling that, except for changing the cast and giving them some new costumes, they haven't done anything to modernize the movie. Some will say that's a good thing, but in my opinion a movie from the mid nineties shouldn't exactly feel the same as one from the mid fifties. Each time period has a different atmosphere and that should be shown in the movie. Now this looks like a very (yes, maybe even too) naive movie.
The Larrabees are a wealthy and prominent Long Island family who have their own driver. The driver has always lived on the estate with his family and while his daughter, Sabrina, was growing up, she spent a lot of her time hidden in a tree, watching the Larrabee family and their garden parties. She knew them all: Maude, the modern matriarch of the family and their company; Linus, the serious older son who has expanded the successful family business into the world's largest communications company and David, the most handsome one of the two brothers who hasn't worked a day in his life, who has had plenty of girlfriends and who is the center of Sabrina's young world. But David doesn't see her as a potential girlfriend and when Sabrina is sent to Paris, he completely forgets about her. Now, after working two years for Vogue magazine in Paris, Sabrina has returned to the Larrabee estate. But she no longer is the insecure teenager she was when she left. She has blossomed into a beautiful and sophisticated woman, making spin the heads of more than one man...
As I already said, the story and actually the entire movie is incredibly naive. I don't mind about that when I see it in a fifties movie, but this is a remake. This was shot in the nineties. So much more is possible. I'm certainly not saying she immediately should have started a sexual relationship with David, but the story should have had more than a slight face lift. On the other hand I must also admit that the acting in this movie wasn't bad. Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear and Nancy Marchand certainly know how to play their roles convincingly, but it just isn't enough to save the entire movie. That's the main reason why I give this movie a 6.5/10. This is only for the absolute fans of romantic comedies.
The Larrabees are a wealthy and prominent Long Island family who have their own driver. The driver has always lived on the estate with his family and while his daughter, Sabrina, was growing up, she spent a lot of her time hidden in a tree, watching the Larrabee family and their garden parties. She knew them all: Maude, the modern matriarch of the family and their company; Linus, the serious older son who has expanded the successful family business into the world's largest communications company and David, the most handsome one of the two brothers who hasn't worked a day in his life, who has had plenty of girlfriends and who is the center of Sabrina's young world. But David doesn't see her as a potential girlfriend and when Sabrina is sent to Paris, he completely forgets about her. Now, after working two years for Vogue magazine in Paris, Sabrina has returned to the Larrabee estate. But she no longer is the insecure teenager she was when she left. She has blossomed into a beautiful and sophisticated woman, making spin the heads of more than one man...
As I already said, the story and actually the entire movie is incredibly naive. I don't mind about that when I see it in a fifties movie, but this is a remake. This was shot in the nineties. So much more is possible. I'm certainly not saying she immediately should have started a sexual relationship with David, but the story should have had more than a slight face lift. On the other hand I must also admit that the acting in this movie wasn't bad. Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, Greg Kinnear and Nancy Marchand certainly know how to play their roles convincingly, but it just isn't enough to save the entire movie. That's the main reason why I give this movie a 6.5/10. This is only for the absolute fans of romantic comedies.