A lot of films have dealt with the tortured artist and the relationships that the artist abuses in the pursuit of his art but rarely are we left with the aftermath. James Ivory's The City of Your Final Destination expose the charred remains of the family Jules Gund has left behind. Gund, who became an instant success after the publication of The Gondola, his first and only novel, appears to have had an influence over his family of that akin to a super-massive black hole. Each members identities seem to exist only in relation to Jules, so when he commits suicide, they lose their orbits. Yet, there is one man trying to bring a renewed focus to the family.
Omar Razaghi is a graduate student hoping to fulfill his PhD candidacy by writing an authorized biography of the late writer. As his stern girlfriend Deirdre (Alexandra Maria Lara) reminds him, without this book he has no degree, no career, no life. After receiving a rejection letter from the three trustees of Jules Gund's estate, Omar, at Deirdre's urging, decides to go to Uruguay to try and convince the family to let him write the book.
Once in Uruguay, Omar first encounters a young girl claiming to be Gund's child, and she leads him to the family home. The young girl is in fact the daughter of Arden Langdon (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who we learn was Jules's mistress. They met while she was on a missionary trip. She became pregnant and eventually decided to accompany Gund to his Uruguayan estate. The only problem is that Jules was still married to Caroline (Laura Linney), who serves as a perfect parallel to Deirdre, equally frank and twice as frigid.
Rounding out the group of trustees is Jules's brother Adam (Anthony Hopkins). From the moment they meet, Adam makes it very clear to Omar that he is on his side, and that perhaps their alliance could be mutually beneficial.
Over the course of the film, Omar devotes less and less time to winning over the remaining signatures and instead embraces life inside the idyllic abode. The time spent walking riverbeds, dining in bucolic settings, and forging relationships has rejuvenated not his career but his life. He even mentions to Arden that he came to the country with the intentions of writing a biography but it has become so much more. In fact, the film could very well be an adaptation of Omar's own Gondola.
But the metafictional possibilities of Omar's experience are not enough to counterbalance the trite Mrs. Gund, who makes frequent references to the majestic estate and to the way they all lived as a family. One of her main protests against the biography is the fact that the outside world could not understand the family's lifestyle. Yet, we learn very little about their lives. Ivory avoids, I think correctly, the desire to include flashbacks, and in spite of terrific acting on the part of the trustees, Omar, and Deirdre, they ultimately appear flat. Their situation does not seem so unique and the film becomes tired with Caroline's constant refrains. Caroline has imagined a past perhaps greater than it was, I think the filmmakers suffer from the same neurosis.
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