Deja Vu

Henry Jaglom has made a career out of quirky little films built on robust dialogue and droll situations. Here Dana (Victoria Foyt, Jaglom's piercing wife and co-writer) finds herself in several surreal entanglements as she hopscotches across Europe to meet her fiancé for their "pre-honeymoon." In Jerusalem she shares a table with an older woman who speaks passionately about a lost love before disappearing. Then in Paris Dana has a premonition of a romantic figure that's realized when she later meets artist Sean (Stephen Dillane) in Dover. After that it's no surprise that Sean and his wife turn up at the English villa where Dana and her fiancé are staying. Then there's Skelly (the always elegant Vanessa Redgrave), who drops in to inform her brother (the villa's owner) that she cannot attend to their ailing mother because she has to travel the world and pursue the fruits of life. Jaglom layers these dramas with enough romance, compassion, and sophistication to make them provocative. You know which side of the argument the director leans to -- it just takes a lot of roundabout banter to get there. At the Avon.

-- Tom Meek