Last night I watched the film “Passionada” starring Sofia Milos (CSI:Miami), Jason Issacs (The Patriot) and featuring Emmy Rossum who recently made a splash in The Phantom of the Opera but has been in recent high profile movies The Day After Tomorrow and Mystic River (as the ill-fated Katie Markum)
Passionada is a harmless film. The performances are convincing, and the story has a decent premise. Set in New Bedford, MA, it tells the tale of Celia Amonte, widow of seven years and get teenage daughter Vicky. Celia hasn’t moved on from losing her husband. When hard-luck gambler Charles Beck enters their lives and is smitten with the disinterested Celia, Vicky sees a chance for Celia to start a new romance and for herself to learn the secrets of card counting in Blackjack at the local casino. Deception and romance ensue.
SInce I never got the sense Celia was suffering much from not having a man in her life, I never bought Vicky’s motivation to get the two main characters together. And Charles Beck was a likeable enough character, but you can’t really root for him too much because… well, it’s not as though he’s all that compelling. We have no particular reason to bond with him. He’s just some layabout.
In any case, the only interest I had in this film was that it was largely shot on location in and around New Bedford, MA. In fact, Maggie, the girls and I were driving by the old Ann and Hope parking lot one night a few years ago and saw the film crew set up around the old Ben Franklin craft supply building, which had been bedecked to suggest a casino. A scene was being shot in the parking lot, so we stopped to watch from a distance.
It turns out, this scene did not make it into the actual film. But it is on the DVD in the form of a really horrible alternate ending. If you are at all familiar with th area, you might recognize the “Casino” as Charles is driving by on Faunce Corner road, and then later at night in the scene we witnessed being filmed.
While it was fun to see this and other New Bedford area locations in the film, it’s not enough to justify seeing (which is why you probably have never heard of the film).
One thing that is really weird is that the story relies on at least one casino being in the area (two if you count the alternate ending). Do the film-makers know something we don’t?
Posted by James at March 3, 2005 7:58 AMCertain groups have been trying to get gambling into New Bedford for years. I guess some people think it's inevitable, but as far as I know public support is virtually nil.
Posted by: Julie at March 3, 2005 9:50 AM