In consequence, "Original Sin" slips into a tedious tale of three uninteresting characters. This Lola smokes cigars, but we never catch a glimpse of her in a circus ring. Although it turns out that she once trod the boards, more is not made of this gypsy life.
Julia hastens backstage at intermission, where her husband finds her talking with an actor. The play is "Faust," and Jolie's beloved brother, James Haven, can be seen from a distance in the title role. One of the film's most arresting scenes comes when Julia and Luis attend the theater with his partner, a courtly Southern planter type played by Australia's Jack Thompson, and his snippy wife. Her opalescent eyes have a faraway look, and her corseted movements are stiff and a bit spooky. But Jolie, whose acting here often consists of little breaths of sound, "ahs" and "ums," seems merely to be playing a Victorian mannequin unsure of who she is or what she wants. Perhaps Cristofer saw her as a Lola Montes, a woman before her time as a lover of men and a cigar-smoking conquerer of kingdoms before her fall. Jolie's Bonnie Castle, also known as Julia Russell, serves as narrator of this film noir and also as its femme fatale. Cristofer's adaptation of "Waltz Into Darkness" by Cornell Woolrich is doomed from the start by the close-up of Jolie's famously puff-mama lips, as luscious as overripe fruit. But the sexual attraction comes across as mere choreography.
Under the overwrought but deadly direction of Michael Cristofer, who claims to be paying homage to the heady, swirling techniques of Max Ophuls ("Lola Montes"), Banderas and Jolie indulge in nude intertwinings shot from various angles. "Original Sin" turns out to be one of the most tiresome movies about love and sex and murder and deception ever made, as it contrasts the honest and sincere acting of Antonio Banderas with the naughty-kitty games of Angelina Jolie.
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