Georgetown

Waltz and Redgrave offer great performances portraying the real people involved in this movie. Be ready to raise questions and seek answers. Think fraud but ....

I don't understand the bad ratings. Ok it's not a 10 but an enjoyable movie with Waltz at his best. 1st half of the movie is brilliant. The second half, especially towards the ending, lacks a bit which is why I only give it a 7.

In a sense this is the Christoph Waltz show, he directs and stars as a man who had great ambitions but was totally duplicitous. In the Washington, D. C. area. Dabbling on the edges of politics and wars. When he 91-yr-old wife turns up dead in their home he is the logical suspect.

In the real life inspiration for the movie the younger man met his eventual wife when he was still a teenager in college. She was married at the time but after her husband died they reconnected. They married in 1990 when she was 70 and he was 26. Her death was 21 years later.

There are a number of really good actors but the movie succeeds on the performance of Christoph Waltz as the duplicitous narcissist. I have seen him in a variety of roles and he is always excellent, a real expert in his craft.

My wife and I watched it at home streaming on Amazon. A really interesting and entertaining movie.

Ulrich Mott (Christoph Waltz) is a well-connected DC operator. He's married to the elderly widow Elsa Breht (Vanessa Redgrave). Her daughter Amanda Breht (Annette Bening) distrusts the smooth talker. When Elsa is suddenly dead, Amanda immediately accuses Ulrich.

This movie is trying hard to sell its reveals. In the end, there is only one truly intriguing reveal. Once that reveal is shown, I would like to see more of Elsa. It's their relationship that is so mysterious. I want to figure her out more. He's a scammer and a skilled story teller. Him telling his stories is not the most compelling cinema. It's not that deep. It's marginally quirky enough to be mildly amusing. I want her and I want to see more of their relationship.

Overall liked the movie, was decent. Acting was good and the story was relatively interesting. The film comes off as if events were incredibly complex, but at the end it's all quite simple.