A close-up of a beautiful young Vietnamese woman opens "The Quiet American" as a voiceover narrates above swelling music. Her name is Phuong. Though her life has taken a few wrong turns, she's graceful, charming, exotic, very very young and above all else, remarkably good-looking. Two men, one British, one American, are each fighting to make her their own.
Her face fades away, replaced by a Vietnamese landscape, bombs shaking the distant sky. This is a country that others went to war for, each for their own motives. The woman, the land. The struggle for both. The Vietnam War, jammed uncomfortably into an allegorical love story.
"The Quiet American" puts Graham Greene's novel, written prophetically before U.S. involvement in the war, on the big screen. It's yet another film bearing Greene's name, following the trajectory of "The Third Man" and "The End of the Affair," that puts two men at odds in a battle to win the heart of one very pretty lady. It's a tried-and-true plot line that is putty in Greene's capable hands, though the film versions have a distinct disadvantage since they must give a face to a woman who, in a novel, can be as supernaturally beautiful and mysterious as a reader's imagination allows.
"The Quiet American" would be more convincing if its tragic female projected either a strong personality or none at all. Although Do Thi Hai Yen plays the part as well as anyone could, the part itself is problematic. Phuong can't help seeming flimsy and halfhearted despite at all times being romanticized to the point of inducing nausea.
And although the transparent allegory tries to give the love story weight, it never becomes easy to see aging Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) with the young Phuong. Fowler, an internationally renowned foreign correspondent for the London Times, has reported from Saigon for a good while and desperately wants his wife to grant a divorce so that he can stay and save Phuong from her uncertain, though certainly wretched, future. Enter Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), a dashing young medical operative just arrived in Saigon, who runs into Fowler, recognizes his work and clings to him for insight and friendship. Soon Pyle meets Phuong and, like Fowler, falls for her immediately. This romantic drama is nestled comfortably in front of a troubling and suspenseful subplot, part mystery, part action/adventure, as Fowler investigates the newly self-appointed, volatile General Th?
Despite the uneasiness which is unavoidably attached to the pairing of Do Thi Hai Yen and Michael Caine, "The Quiet American" manages to stay involving, largely due to excellent cinematography and the unpredictable subterfuge which soon commences within the narrative. Director Philip Noyce ("Patriot Games," "Rabbit-Proof Fence") secured a location in Vietnam for shooting most of the film and enlisted Hong Kong-based cinematography master Christopher Doyle to create thelook. Good choices, both. Dark and light contrasts are a constant throughout the film, with frequent shadows and hints of light creating a subdued, quiet visual motif. But with so much interesting landscape and activity going on, it seems wrong that the film uses so many close-up shots. Caine shows his worth, and it's clear he can write any emotion onto his face, so there's no need to spend time on every facial tick. Same goes for the other two main actors. Without argument, Do Thi Hai Yen is very pretty. This doesn't need to be proven from all angles. Fraser, in a departure from his generally knuckleheaded roles, stays stiff and macho as Pyle, but such a performance is called for by his role, that of a well-intentioned but thick-skulled and ignorant American.
"The Quiet American" is at its best when different viewpoints clash. Fowler and Pyle have several heated discussions about America's role in Vietnam, and Fowler, who prides himself on not taking sides, eventually must. These conflicts are what carry the film, driving it far away from "Pearl Harbor"-like propagandistic melodrama and reaching instead an intelligent, complex and undecided level of analysis. Such open-endedness is, admittedly, likely due to the 20 minutes missing from the American version, since distributors were (rightly) worried about stirring up anti-American sentiments in a time of war. But the montage of newspaper headlines at the film's end speaks for itself.
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