Madonna's Shipwreck

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By Newsweek Editors

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Guy Ritchie's remake of "Swept Away" is largely faithful to Lina Wertmuller's politically incorrect desert-island love story, though his movie is different in two telling ways. The first is that it stinks. The second is that Ritchie has deleted the line from the 1974 original where the fisherman glowers at the haughty, blond socialite and asks, "How many lovers have you had with that Madonna look of yours?"

Early on, toxic Amber (Madonna) gets stranded with an Italian crewman named Giuseppe, whom she's been berating aboard a yacht. (Giuseppe is played by Adriano Giannini, whose father, Giancarlo, starred in Wertmuller's film.) Amber starves, and begs Giuseppe to fish for her. Seizing the chance to teach her a lesson and assert his primal male whatever, he demands that Amber call him Master, then slaps her, kicks her and all but rapes her. Soon they're in love. The uncomfortable politics of "Swept Away" go down even more harshly this time because the movie is so inert--and Madonna's performance so starkly amateurish--that it's impossible to take it seriously as an allegory about class and gender. Ritchie ("Snatch") inserts a montage in which the lovers play charades and a dream sequence in which Amber lipsyncs to "Come On-a My House." They are both exuberant, completely irrelevant scenes: sure signs of a bored director and a movie that's miles and miles out to sea.

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