If you're not belly-full of all the eating, praying and loving, and aren't stretched to your limits with the recent onslaught of sexy mature women in exotic locales, here's a film that might offer a little more — a star playing against type, some suspense — in addition to the requisite eye candy and emotional revelations.
In Cairo Time, the usually sassy and headstrong Clarkson — regognized by college boys as the strawberry-blonde MILF in the SNL video short, Motherlover — plays a more-delicate-than-usual magazine editor, Juliette, who travels to Cairo to meet her diplomat husband, Mark (Tom McCamus). She learns from his friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) that Mark has been delayed, so Tareq hospitably takes on the duties of hubba-hubba tour guide, introducing her to the city, its customs and, um, err ... yeah, an unexpected attraction arises between the married lady and the Egyptian. Oops.
The movie has gotten good reviews, for the most part. David Edelstein of New York Magazine says Patricia Clarkson "is usually so 'on' that it’s a surprise to see her play a melancholy, passive woman — and play her with such airy, elegiac grace." David Lewis of the San Francisco Chronicle said the film "confirms two things that hardly need confirming: The Egyptian capital is a breathtaking metropolis, and Patricia Clarkson is one of the best actors in the world."
Cairo Time plays at 7:30 p.m. at Tampa Theare at 711 N Franklin St. in downtown Tampa.
Directed and written by Ruba Nadda; cast: Patricia Clarkson, Alexander Siddig, Elena Anaya
Rated: PG/2009/1:30/romance/in English and Arabic with English subtitles.
