Une femme d'affaires

This is a "love it or hate it" movie, it just depends on your personal interests and background.

If you are looking for a love story or a typical Hollywood action movie you will hate it.

If you have an interest in the specific subject matter of this movie it will keep you glued to your seat.

This is a political/financial/conspires movie with some good plot twists.

If you have ever read an Ayn Rand novel you will appreciate the character types in this movie.

Not for the masses, but a gem for the right person.

Jane Fonda was a movie star. She retired to marry an industrialist who has just been murdered. She takes over a Wall Street bank with the aid of Kris Kristofferson, who becomes her lover. Everything seems hunky-dory, until each discovers evidence oil-money-rich Arabs are abandoning the international money system in favor of gold. This threatens the entire world.

Alan Pakula's movie is, as usual, impeccably directed, with a fine cast that includes Hume Cronyn and Bob Gunton as shadowy, threatening bankers. I found it curiously uninvolving, probably because this seems well-trod territory in terms of story telling, and the issues it covers, although pressing at the time, have receded I also thought the scenes in the bank, filled with then-current computers and draft printers, darkly lit to serve the paranoia, more curious than unsettling.

Some movie may serve to encapsulate a moment. This can offer a fascinating glimpse into a dead world. Here, it results in a movie which doesn't serve more than the moment.

Funny how art ultimately imitates life. This movie is like a Nostradomus vision of our current economic situation. Only difference is that the villains aren't Arabs, we just have to look in to the mirror to see who did it to us. Time to buy gold? Time to stock up on emergency provisions? Ebay's founder, PIERRE OMIDYAR, moved to Hawaii but has contingency plans in case of pandemic or economic collapse. See: The Honolulu Advertiser, article on front page of March, 22, 2009. It is a real hoot to see how a billionaire views the world!

So don't forget to stock up on food and water, and if you can't afford a security detail of ex-secret service agents, find yourself a good firearm to protect you and your loved ones.

I have not brushed up on my financial lingo, so a lot of the Wall Street talk went over my head. It might be possible I'm too dumb to fully "get" this movie. That being said, can I at least have interesting characters to fear for and a good deal of suspense when I'm watching a thriller?

The two leads are like figures from a Sidney Sheldon potboiler: sexy and sassy, but otherwise little more than blow-up dolls. The love scenes are hilariously cheesy and the suspense is basically nil. The latter is a shock considering this was directed by Alan J. Pakula, who made some of the greatest thrillers of the 1970s: KLUTE, THE PARALLAX VIEW, and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. Those were phenomenal movies. Most importantly, you could follow them. ROLLOVER is way harder to follow if you aren't sure what the characters are talking about and to be honest, even after reading a synopsis to digest what was going on, I found I didn't really care.

This was a 1981 movie Jane Fonda "got made" after her exploration of the dangers of nuclear power in the "China Syndrome" back in 1979. She was driving to tell the story of real money - gold and how OTHER parts of the world value gold as real money while the Americans don't understand it. (Note: And it's not about Jane. I don't even like Jane Fonda...her politics aren't supposed to be in the acting on the screen. At some point a movie - or any art - is not about the artist's personality, it's about what's on the page or the score or on the screen.)

The plot line is about "outsiders" not rolling over their CDs in American banks and buying gold...and what the loss of those foreign investments means to the financial establishment in New York. I'll admit the acting and the romance are not top notch. So what? This movie was a "financial thriller" and there just ain't many of these movies made. Movies need bank financing, and banks usually won't finance anything that makes them look bad or stupid. (They show "I'ts a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart on TV only once a year now because it shows "run on the bank" at the Bailey Savings and Loan - not something the financial establishment wants Americans to even think about.) I'm a Certified Financial Planner and I recommend this movie in my classes along with Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" and "Boiler Room" as movies that shed light on the financial world in which we live today. In 2005, it's even more important for people to understand the relationships between gold and paper money as the cycle from the 1970's reasserts itself.

And get over the Arab slights in the movie. They weren't the point back in 1981 and they aren't the point now. A lack of political correctness is not a reason to avoid this movie.