The American (1998)

A rich young self made American (Matthew Modine) is in Paris trying to soak up culture and perhaps find a wife. When he meets a young widow (Aisling O'Sullivan), he is smitten. But her family harbors dark secrets and the woman's mother (Diana Rigg) fiercely opposes any marriage. Based on the novel by Henry James and directed by Paul Unwin. The film departs from the Henry James source material and not for the better. Like James's Daisy Miller, Modine's Christopher Newman is a gauche American lost among the machinations of decadent old European aristocrats. But the film makers have thrown in sex scenes and makes the De Bellegarde family even more corrupt than they were in the book in an attempt to spice it up. They've also completely changed a secondary character's (a mediocre artist played by Eva Birthistle) story line. Modine's blandness, normally a detriment to any film, is used to great effect here. But it's Rigg's scornful matriarch that dominates the film. I wouldn't mind seeing a film more faithful to the Henry James book. With Brenda Fricker and Andrew Scott.