Graham Greene's 1956 novel The Quiet American appeared soon after France abandoned colonial control of Vietnam but before the U.S. war effort escalated to stop the spread of Communism in that country. Nearly a half century later, director Phillip Noyce adapts this story of love and betrayal in Saigon in a powerful, moving film anchored by superb casting.. Saigon in 1952 was the outpost of the waning French empire. An insurgent movement in north Vietnam was pushing the French closer to defeat at Dien Bien Phu two years later. But Saigon has become home to London Times correspondent Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine). Fowler is a decent man, but disengaged. The war is less important to him than staying with Phuong (Do Thi Han Yen), a beauty he met in a dance hall. A telegram that threatens to recall him to London disturbs his quiet life, as does Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), a young American ostensibly on a U.S.-sponsored medical mission. The screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan turns on Fowler's effort to stay put and on Pyle's sudden infatuation with Phuong. Because Fowler's wife in England won't divorce him, he can't offer marriage. But Pyle can. Fowler tries to uncover the truth about a massacre to buy time with London. His suspicion points to an upstart Vietnamese general, supported by unknown sources, who is driving a wedge between Viet Minh insurgents and the French. And clues hint that Pyle is involved. Romance and politics become entangled as Fowler realizes that to keep his woman, he must get rid of Pyle, a man whose good-natured innocence he can't help but like. Fowler is the center of Noyce's film. As in the novel, he tells the story in flashback from the discovery of Pyle's body in the Saigon river to Fowler's first encounter with the young American. Michael Caine gives Fowler his special seedy authority, an Englishman who has found a home where rules bred in the bone don't necessarily apply. This is a role Caine perfected long ago, starting with The Ipcress File (1965), which caught his character in a similar clash between loyalties. Much older than Harry Palmer in that film, but almost as cheeky, Caine plays Fowler as a man who knows life is running out but hopes to hold on to what little savor it has left. The increasing complexity of the Vietnam conflict forces him into moral ambiguities familiar to admirers of Graham Greene. Just as convincing, but more surprising, is Brendan Fraser as Pyle. Blocky, big-shouldered, and wearing horn-rim glasses, Fraser is an unexpected choice for Greene's quiet American. Yet this actor can traverse the distance between self-effacement (Gods and Monsters) and formula self-importance (The Mummy). Caine's portrayal was nominated for an Oscar and other awards, but Fraser deserves notice too. The Quiet American was filmed once before (1958) with Audie Murphy in the title role. Greene was reportedly furious because this version suppressed the novel's anticipatory indictment of America's chosen role in Vietnam. Noyce's version gains power from a half century of hindsight, imaged in a morose closing montage of newspaper articles over Fowler's byline about the ensuing American war. That hindsight and the need to invent a plot arc for a character-driven story forces Noyce to fashion a suspense thriller closer in spirit to Greene's `entertainments' (his term) than to his serious novels. This is no criticism of Noyce; many Greene `entertainments,' like The Third Man and Our Man in Havana became memorable movies. One welcome change enhances the importance of Phuong, who is little more than a cipher in the novel, and Do Thi Han Yen invests the role with passion and complexity. The director and star have run the gamut from psychological dramas to simple potboilers. Noyce debuted with Deep Calm and recently directed Rabbit-Proof Fence. Along the way he helmed The Saint, The Bone Collector, and other forgettables. Highs and lows punctuate Caine's roster of roles. This is another high. The Quiet American joins two mature talents in an emotionally subtle film that showcases their special skills.
Review of The Quiet American
