City Of Your Final Destination

The Merchant/Ivory film “The City Of Your Final Destination” is about a young American academic, Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally), who attempts to persuade the reluctant heirs of a celebrated Uruguayan novelist, Jules Gund, to allow him to write an authorized biography of the writer, who has recently died. Undeterred by the executors’ adamant refusal, and urged on by his vehemently ambitious girlfriend, another academic, Razaghi turns up uninvited on the family’s doorstep in a remote corner of Uruguay, hoping to change their minds. Before long, he is joined there by his super-efficient girlfriend, Deirdre.The Gund family, living in two big rundown houses on an overgrown, steamy estancia named “Ocho Rios,” reacts to the intrusion in different ways. The writer’s widow Caroline Gund (Laura Linney) stubbornly states with every breath that she will never, never give her permission. The writer’s brother Adam Gund (Anthony Hopkins) has a contrary opinion: a biography can only help to keep the writer’s name before a book-buying public. The writer’s young mistress Arden Langdon (Charlotte Gainsbourg) at sides with Caroline. Then, as she begins to fall for Omar — or is she succumbing only to the charm of someone, anyone, new? — she changes her mind. Two further supporters of Omar are Gund’s ten-year-old daughter Portia, and Pete, Adam’s practical-minded companion (Sanada). How Omar comes in time to have his wish granted, and the effect of that on his future, makes up the plot of this film about the random nature of love and the ways in which we avoid or confront life’s choices.It is director James Ivory’s 1985 Oscar winning movie “A Room With A View,” that catapulted Helena Bonham-Carter and Daniel Day-Lewis and Judi Dench to worldwide fame, that remains one of the five best movies ever made, according to Wild About Movies publisher, Tim Nasson.