Cairo Time: A Charming 'Time'

Cairo Time (2010) • View trailer for Cairo Time
Four stars (out of five) • Rated PG for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.24.10
Buy DVD: Cairo Time • Buy Blu-Ray: Cairo Time [Blu-ray]

Writer/director Ruba Nadda's quiet little character study is thoughtful and spare: a big-screen Hemingway short story ... allowing for the fact that the primary protagonist here is a woman.

But not just any woman: Juliette Grant is played by Patricia Clarkson, a superlative actress generally confined to supporting roles — such as Emma Stone's mother, in Easy A — who absolutely deserves this starring shot. She first caught my attention with back-to-back performances in 2003, in The Station Agent and Pieces of April, the latter bringing her a well-deserved Academy Award nomination.

Although she has been delaying a visit to some of Cairo's
fabled landmarks, in the hopes of sharing them with her
absent husband, Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) finally allows
new friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to be her guide: an
oddly intimate gesture typical of the Brief Encounter-style
relationship that evolves during the course of this
cinematic tone-poem.

Clarkson had been busy prior to that, and I wasn't surprised to discover that she had delivered memorable roles in Playing by Heart (1998), The Green Mile (1999) and Far from Heaven (2002). It can be fun, after "suddenly" being struck by somebody's talent, to back-trace and discover that you've been admiring her for years, without quite being aware of it.

All of which brings us to Cairo Time, in which Clarkson shines as an American woman wholly out of her element. Juliette has flown into Cairo to spend a long-overdue vacation with her husband, Mark. They're both workaholics: She has an executive editorial position with a high-tone woman's magazine that's both glossy and superficial; he's a dedicated United Nations relief worker.

Unhappily, he's not at the airport to meet her. Instead, Juliette is collected by Tareq Khalifa (Alexander Siddig), until recently one of her husband's colleagues, who explains that Mark has been "detained" at the Gaza Strip. That word is pregnant with meaning, in this part of the world, but a phone call that evening reassures Juliette that Mark is fine ... but not likely to get away soon.