Juliette Grant (Patricia Clarkson) has arrived in Cairo. Her husband Mark works for the United Nations and has been held up in Gaza. His colleague Tareq (Alexander Siddig) is at the airport waiting: tall, handsome, exotic. She's nervous and open to his offer of care. Mark remains held up in Gaza and so Tareq becomes an ad-hoc tour guide, introducing Juliette to his city. Cue felucca's on the Nile, hookah pipes in the bazaar. The pyramids however, are off-limits until Mark arrives although to Juliette's irritation, he's not in a hurry. Hey-ho, more time for sight-seeing!
Canadian writer/director Ruba Nadda has plunged headlong into Mills & Boon territory with an eye on older women, no doubt a poorly catered to audience. You could safely take your grandmother to see Cairo Time without a moment's hesitation. But would she thank you for it? Unlikely, unless she has a healthy appetite for romance novels, acknowledging this is a lesser title.
Apart from a holiday in Egypt, it's hard to see what Clarkson gets out of the film either. Certainly not a memorable role for Juliette has been lifted straight from the pages of the aforementioned: a coy, forlorn character allowed nothing more than a chaste kiss. Audiences get even less from a drearily underwritten script devoid of passion and adventure, the key elements of such a story. These two barely hold hands such is the old-fashioned styling of their emotional relationship. Not that Cairo Time sets out to challenge Sharon Stone exactly.
In balance, Clarkson makes the most of her role, giving Juliette a quiet dignity that slips around most of the clichés she encounters. Similarly Siddig does his best with the noble-native groaner. Cairo, the movie's third character, looks magnificent although it is impossible to point a camera in Egypt and not triumph. If only their story offered more than a loose assortment of middle-aged noodlings.
// COLIN FRASER
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