What’s It All About?
Alfie is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the 1966 film about a cockney womanizer that made Michael Caine a star. Like in the ’60s version, set in swingin’ London, the blissfully uncommitted Alfie (Jude Law) talks to the camera. Now set in sexually open modern times (minus any messy reference to HIV), Alfie is an Englishman in New York. He explains his philosophy of life, justifying why he beds then abandons a series of sexy birds. Director and co-writer Charles Shyer gives the film a ’60s ambiance with a cool jazz score and such ’60s staples as freeze frames and split-screens. As he continues his quest for sexual freedom, it dawns on Alfie that his lifestyle is going nowhere. His notion that he’s hurting no one, that he’s a decent chap if a bit self-centered, begins to unravel.
What’s it all about, Alfie? Maybe that commitment is worth the restrictions. The series of luscious ladies he woos includes Nia Long as his best friend’s girl, and terrific older woman Liz (Susan Sarandon) who values her self-centered lifestyle as much as Alfie does. Her kiss-off sends him reeling, and Law — while less riveting than Caine — does a fine job is this grown-up romp about modern sexuality in the Big Apple.