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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Sabrina (1995) [PG] ****

This is a wonderful romance with a great screenplay, great casting, and a beautiful soundtrack. It's the Cinderella story of Sabrina Fairchild (Julia Ormond), the chauffeur's daughter for a wealthy Long Island family named Larrabee.

Ever since she was a little girl, Sabrina had been in love with the handsome younger son, playboy David Larrabee (Greg Kinnear) and had suffered the heartache of unrequited love, since he was totally oblivious to her existence. When Sabrina returns from a year in Paris, transformed by the experience, she is older, wiser, and in many ways more mature than the perfect, but unchanged David. He sees Sabrina as a new playmate, although he is engaged to be married to Elizabeth Tyson (Lauren Holly). David's older brother Linus (Harrison Ford), is a driven businessman in the midst of a mid-life crisis.

Linus sees Sabrina as a threat to the marriage, and thus to the corporate merger he is engineering with Elizabeth's father Patrick Tyson (Richard Crenna). (Elizabeth's mother, Ingrid Tyson, formerly an airline stewardess, is played by Angie Dickinson.) Linus concocts a scheme to get Sabrina out of the way, but along the way he realizes that he is love with her, and that his life is in need of radical transformation. He admits, with some bitterness: I do what my father did. He did what his father did. I never chose. Finally, Linus recognizes that Sabrina, alone, is the savior who can help him grow and experience love. Linus pleads with her: Save me Sabrina fair, you're the only one who can.

This beautiful film will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced love as the catalyst for personal growth and transformation. Watch it with someone you love.

David's Ferrari is a 1993 348 Spider

Labels: Cinderella-story, comedy, drama, fashion, Ferrari, Paris, rom-drama-faves, romance
Internet Movie Database 63/100
MetaScore (critics=56, viewers=71)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=61, viewers=72)
Blu-ray
James Berardinelli's ReelViews.net film review