Sabrina (1995)

(On TV, March 2020) Remaking a Bogart/Hepburn movie is a losing proposition, especially if the original film was written and directed by Billy Wilder. Having established this, this updated remake of Sabrina is not that much of an embarrassment, as long as you’re in an indulgent mood. At the top of the ticket, Harrison Ford is good (but not Bogart and uncomfortable in the part), while Julia Ormond is all right, but can’t come closer to Aubrey Hepburn than anyone else. Plot-wise, the filmmakers do what they can to update the 1950s material to the 1980s, even if the most notable difference between the two films is in the technical aspects—including a notable improvement to the Paris sequence, which is actually shot in Paris. Otherwise, well—the story is still about an awkward man romancing someone significantly younger than him, blending business and old-money surroundings and romance. This Sabrina works if you soft-pedal a lot of the film’s fairytale trappings, excuse Ford for not being ideally suited to the role, ignore the age and/or class difference between the two, and gloss over the pacing. Which is admittedly asking for a lot. Surprisingly, the one thing that has aged rather well is the 1990s setting, now almost as distant and exotic to viewers as the 1950s were to remake viewers. (Note: this does not mean I’m advocating for another remake.) Still, there’s still some charm to this remake—Ford in glasses and suits, Ormond’s curly hair and the soft-focus gloss of 1990s romantic comedies. It’s not quite enough to dislodge the first film as the better Sabrina, but it’s just enough to make this remake its own entity.