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Hugh Laurie stars in Christopher Monger's romantic comedy. After discovering his wife is having an affair with his boss, a mild-mannered bank clerk clears out the safe and hot-foots it to Rio

While the sight of Hugh Laurie teaching a Samba class to OAPs is not an encouraging start, Christopher Monger's dreamy fantasy about a grey little Englishman who finds his true colours on the beaches of the Copa Cabana has an idiosyncratic and naive charm. After all, any film that casts Hugh Laurie and British TV veteran John Junkin (as a fellow bank clerk) in the same scene can't be all bad.

To play Samba-obsessed Raymond, Laurie recalls the slightly grumpy persona he adopted in Ang Lee's Sense And Sensibility - and it's his fish-out-of-water turn that helps the film muddle on through to the end.

The story of Girl From Rio (Chica De Río) quickly descends into the realm of fantasy. When the cuckolded Raymond arrives in Rio after his spur-of-the-moment robbery he meets pudgy cab driver Paulo (Segura), who rapidly leads him to the girl-of-his-dreams, the exotic Orlinda (Brazilian model Nunes), whom he has spent many an afternoon drooling over on the cover of Samba Monthly. Such convenient plot beats are matched by the film's simplistic tourist's-eye view of its destinations.

Writer-director Monger (best known for the quirky Hugh Grant effort The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain) draws a rather obvious sketch of the contrasting social worlds Raymond shifts between. London is cold, rainy and full of city types; Rio is a riot of colour, populated by gangsters and grubby street urchins. While nowhere near as authentic as the Rio seen in City Of God, the film nevertheless captures the vibrant beat of a city that pulsates in spite of its evident poverty.

Verdict

Surprisingly watchable thanks to a steady performance from Laurie and a sexy turn by newcomer Nunes. Girl From Rio should appeal to all those who spend their day dreaming of far-flung locales and screwing over their boss.

A Lolafilms Distribucion release of a Lolafilms/Casanova Pictures production, in association with Antena 3, Via Digital. (International sales: Lolafilms UK, London.) Produced by Andres Vicente Gomez, Muir Sutherland.

Directed, written by Christopher Monger, based on a script by Francisco Lara, Julian Ibanez. Camera (color), Jose Luis Alcaine; editor, Nicolas Wentworth; music, Roque Banos; art director, Charles Garrad; sound (Dolby Digital), Mark A. Van der Willigen, Andrew Sissons. Reviewed at Cine Palafox, Madrid, July 23, 2001. Running time: 108 MIN.

With: Hugh Laurie, Vanessa Nunes, Santiago Segura, Lia Williams, Patrick Barlow, Nelson Xavier.

(English dialogue)

An intermittently charming but ultimately slight and very deja vu comedy built around the awkward-Englishman-abroad cliche, Christopher Monger's "That Girl From Rio" fails to exploit the potential of its central idea. Though both Brit comic Hugh Laurie and Spanish star Santiago Segura give it all they've got, the plotline never threatens to become interesting and the central romance is fatally implausible. Spanish B.O. has been surprisingly slow, given Segura's high profile, and theatrical prospects look equally slim offshore.

Laurie plays Raymond, a bank clerk who escapes his drab life by giving dance classes and dreaming about the statuesque salsa dancer, Orlinda (ex-model Vanessa Nunes). Early scenes, which are a nice combination of gentle comedy and straight-up melancholy, show Raymond's unhappy marriage to Cathy (Lia Williams), who's having an affair with his boss, Strothers (Patrick Barlow). When Cathy and Strothers run off together leaving Raymond in charge of the bank, Raymond steals a load of cash and heads for Rio.

There he encounters slovenly taxi driver Paulo (Segura), who takes him to meet Orlinda. They dance and are soon back at Raymond's luxury hotel, but in the morning Orlinda is gone, along with all his belongings. Pic descends into the humdrum as Raymond pursues his money, getting involved with local Mafia type Bichero (Nelson Xavier). The Brazilian scenes lack the telling comic details that bring the London ones to life.

Script doesn't look at the irony of the cold Brit vs. passionate Latino stereotypes, which would have added depth. Still, Laurie is fine as the downtrodden Raymond, with the camera happy to exploit his rubbery features and Hugh Grant-like jittery self-consciousness.

Dialogue is generally lively and the Brazilian scenes at least capture the exuberance and chaos of Rio. Music plays some clever cross-cultural games, using both brass bands and salsa.

[Excerpt]

Hugh Laurie is of the same comedy generation as Atkinson and co-starred with him in two series of Blackadder, but he has a much tougher time of it in the cinema this week. To date, his film career has been founded on two things: one, that he is an amiable sort of a cove, and two, that he is one of the few actors tall enough to allow such willowy co-stars as Geena Davis (Stuart Little) and Joely Richardson (Maybe Baby) to slip on the high heels and not tower over their screen husband.

But in Girl From Rio he finally meets his match. Laurie may be 6ft 2in in his bare feet, but in her dancing shoes his co-star, Vanessa Nunes, is a good inch-and-a-half taller.

No wonder she kicks them off at every opportunity.

Gazing at Ms Nunes's endless legs, however, is one of the few treats in a movie which takes a moderately charming idea and, more or less, murders it.

Laurie plays Raymond, a much put-upon assistant bank manager who, a couple of days before Christmas, discovers that his nagging wife (Lia Williams) has been having an affair with his boss (Patrick Barlow). When the adulterous pair jet off to the Canary Islands, Raymond decides to rob his own bank, fly to Rio de Janeiro and search for the fantasy girl of his syncopated daydreams, a samba dancer called Orlinda (Nunes) whom he once saw on the cover of Samba Monthly.

It's a farfetched but perfectly nice idea, but the execution is all over the place, which is disappointing given that it is written and directed by Christopher Monger, who brought us The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain.

The London-based preamble is directed in a style that is part lame sitcom (Raymond's feeble white samba band) and part limp farce (sex on a washing machine), while the Rio section is so unpleasant that I'm surprised the Brazilian Tourist Office hasn't sued for damages. Raymond may have stolen the money in the first place, but now everyone in Brazil seems out to rob him.

Laurie does his best, the talented Williams is totally wasted and the extraordinary looking Hispanic cast struggle with their English, their acting and Monger's wretchedly unfunny and noticeably unromantic script.

Girl From Rio