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Speaking of stars who disappeared a while -- winning an Oscar for 1997's L. A. Confidential didn't seem to leave Kim Basinger feeling too confident. Maybe she was depressed about having to sell Braselton, Georgia back to the Indians to pay for that Boxing Helena lawsuit, but for whatever reason this is her first movie since.
Subtitled "a true story," it casts Basinger as Kuki Gallman, an Italian naturalist (oops, more accent trouble) on whose stranger-in-a-strange-land memoir it's based. Before getting natural, Kuki, her son from her first marriage, and new husband Paolo (Vincent Perez, from, coincidentally, The Crow: City of Angels) -- who I guess is supposed to be Italian too, or at least from the Italian part of Switzerland, but talks like he's auditioning for another one of those Oxford Latin parts in Gladiator -- move from comfortable, opera-laden Vienna to a rundown ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Kenya, because Paolo spent his childhood there and wants to forestall mid-life crisis. Over the course of the next ten years or so (the only way you can tell time is passing is that two different actors play Kuki's son), she has to contend with snakebite, lion attacks, poachers, water-buffalo goring, banditry, drought, disease, and typhoons.
Sounds exciting. Well, it is -- about as exciting as listening to an interpretive reading of the NFL rule book in order to get a feel for football. I Dreamed of Africa has no plot whatsoever. No insight is given to why the characters do anything; the whole mess may have something to do with a car accident in Italy that occurs right after the opening credits, but it's hard to tell. Non sequitur events just run up out of nowhere, like the abrupt love scene whose sole purpose is to let Kim flash some boob and perhaps show that chasing an elephant out of the garden makes her randy. We don't even get to see much African scenery or wildlife. It's just a bunch of personal tragedy with exotic animals hanging around for atmosphere. They could have accomplished the same thing by remaking Gone With the Wind in a zoo. To top it off, Basinger sounds like she's caught the whispering fever from Jodie Foster, delivering all her lines (except when she's shouting at elephants) in a breathy rasp.
Ms. Basinger is, based on her past work, obviously an actress of some talent. But one of the tricks to moviemaking is matching a good script with actors who are right for the parts. I Dreamed of Africa has neither. You'd be better off to stay home and snooze with a National Geographic under your pillow. D
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