ORIGINAL SIN

She’s not the biddy in the picture that she sent, and he’s not the coffee-shop clerk he professed to be in his letters. Like everything else in this adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s novel Waltz into Darkness (which François Truffaut adapted as Mississippi Mermaid in 1969), appearances are deceiving. When Julia (Angelina Jolie) arrives in Cuba in the 1800s, she proves a shapely siren, and Louis (Antonio Banderas) admits to being the enterprising proprietor of a coffee-export company. The two have agreed to an arranged marriage: she wants stability, he wants an American bride for social status. They are wed immediately, and after some steamy sex, Louis is indelibly pussy-whipped. From there, bliss veers to the dark side as Julia’s true identity and motives are uncovered.

As a psychological thriller, Original Sin is overblown, maintaining the intrigue with one preposterous twist after another, including a subplot involving Thomas Jane as a dubious detective and an attempt by Louis and Julia to rig a poker game. What tempted two very sexy actors and a Pulitzer PrYze–winning playwright (writer/director Michael Cristofer, who also won a Razzie for his Bonfire of the Vanities screenplay) to fall for this mess is the biggest mystery.

— Tom Meek