Wait, there was a Billy Wilder movie starring Humphrey Bogart that I had somehow not seen before? I don’t lay claim to know what every movie in creation is, and this one isn’t some obscure piece of cinema but something of a genuine classic. And yet, I hadn’t seen Sabrina.
Considering I seem to be watching a lot of, shall we say, decidedly unsentimental stuff around the holidays this year, this seemed like a good thing to finally see. And no, I do not plan on watching the remake. Who in their right mind opts to remake a Billy Wilder movie?
The Larrabee family is a wealthy New York family consisting of a mom, dad, and two brothers. Older brother Linus (Bogart) is a serious-minded man who runs the family business. Younger brother David (William Holden) is a profligate playboy, married many times, and always on the prowl for some other woman. And then there’s Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn). She’s the chauffeur’s daughter, and she’s deeply and hopelessly in love with David, a young man who would never give her the time of day. Her father doesn’t really want her mooning over any of the Larrabees, and he’s sending his daughter to study at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris to try and learn some good skills and get over her thing for David.
For what it’s worth, her feelings for David are pretty far from a secret to the rest of the servants, and her father seems to be the only one who isn’t keen on her making a connection with David.
Sabrina, with a little help from an older gentleman, learns how to be a polished woman, the kind that would easily grab David’s attention when she returns. There’s one problem there: David is engaged to marry the daughter of a sugar magnate, largely because Linus needs the sugar to sell a new line of bulletproof (but sweet to the taste) plastic, and it would be good for the family. David isn’t too keen on this arrangement, and Sabrina sure is sweet. A freak accident lays David up for a while, leaving Linus to fake interest in allowing David and Sabrina to hook up while wooing the girl himself so he can let her off gently. Linus has no interest in romance. He only loves running the business.
That’s actually a nice touch in the script that Wilder co-wrote. Linus has no interest in money. He just loves doing his job. The money is just a side benefit. Running the business is its own reward for Linus, or so he says.
Now, it’s hardly a surprise that Linus’s plan would backfire and he’s end up falling for Sabrina himself. Sure, he dismisses the idea at first, even noting in a line the obvious age difference between himself and Hepburn, but Bogie is always one of those coolest guys in the room while Hepburn is effortlessly adorable. If anything, the biggest surprise isn’t that Bogie gets the girl, that the girl is so attractive, or that Wilder made a clever and funny movie. It’s Holden as the other brother. I’ve seen enough of Holden’s work to know he was often the romantic lead himself, and while he is something of a cad when we first meet him, his gripes aren’t necessarily out of line since he didn’t ask to marry anyone until his brother arranged it like some kind of medieval marriage of convenience. And yet, he’s never a despicable human being and remains likable in his own way. Even if Linus is depicted as a better catch in the end, David’s not completely terrible and even demonstrates character growth of his own before the movie is over.
Then again, that’s probably just a sign of how good Billy Wilder was.
Grade: A
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