Night Train to Lisbon 2013

     This film is based on a novel by Pascal Mercier.  Raimund Gregorius is an elderly Swiss professor of classical languages.  He’s going to work across a bridge in the rain and he sees a young woman getting ready to jump from the bridge.  He drops all of his papers, loses his umbrella into the water and pulls her back down to the pavement.  He takes her to his class with him, he doesn’t know what else to do with her?  She leaves and he doesn’t know anything about her except that she is Portuguese.  He finds a book in her raincoat pocket.  He becomes so mesmerized by the book that he abandons his dull life and takes the train to Lisbon in search of the author.

     I didn’t like the storytelling style of this film.  Instead of showing the history of the author, it is told by his sister and others who knew him.  There are scenes of his history so why not just show the scenes and let them do the telling?  Too long, too many characters and people shown at different ages of their lives making it difficult to know who they are.  Raimund is thinking about living and the film is thinking about being a movie?  2* (I didn’t like this film.

111 min, Mystery directed by Bille August with Jeremy Irons, Melanie Laurent, Jack Huston, Martina Gedeck, Tom Courtenay, August Diehl, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin, Charlotte Rampling.

Note:  Imdb 6.8 out of 10, 42% critic 59% au

dience on Rotten Tomatoes, Film Crave 2.17/4.