(rated R)
It’s Paris 1924, and a fortune teller sees a young girl, Gilda Besse’s fortune ‘in her 34th year”. As Gilda grows into a woman (Charlize Theron) she is a socialite, a rich billionaire’s daughter, who happens upon the room of a Cambridge (London) student named Guy (Stuart Townsend). And so the tumultuous relationship follows years of mixing characters, history, war and art, all from the eyes of Guy and from the body of a very notoriously bad-girl Gilda, who sexes men and discards them like yesterday’s news. Enter Penelope Cruz who takes a backseat to Theron’s Oscar crown, in a gypsy supporting role as Mia, a Spanish-refugee-burlesque-show-has-been who Gilda has taken under her wing. Their relationships are intriguing and curious but even within their avant-garde clicks, the story never really kicks in or manages to convince us. Guy’s love for Gilda is perpetual and one sided while Gilda goes from her moments of care-free to caring, only because the war begins. An elder audience will most relate with the all too familiar cold memories of world war. But for the rest of us, despite its glamour and showy moments, it’s nothing but fluff.
