When compared without sentimentality -- remake's just better

Awesome! And thank you! Especially since, yes, I was ducking to avoid flying vegetables for this opinion.

I love the soundtrack too, which is honestly much more fairy-tale and dreamlike and in keeping with Sabrina's opening voiceover (to me) than the original's soundtrack.

I know many many will disagree, and that's cool with me. I just wanted to throw out there that -- MAYBE -- people are just so married to the idea that the original is always always better (not to mention with wonderful folks like Hepburn, Bogart and Holden) that this must not be questioned.

When, as a screenwriter and former film student, I totally question it. I've seen some amazing movies from the last 70-80 years but honestly remakes never bugged me anyway. Most suck. BUT. Those that don't seem to manage to illuminate or rethink the material. It's definitely an uphill slog for the new folks to do justice to a masterpiece.

So I do admit to adoring Sabrina (1995) -- I remember Pollack on "Inside the Actor's Studio," and when an audience member spoke up and said she heard he was remaking Sabrina, she just wanted him to know it was her favorite movie in the world. As I remember, his response was very cute -- basically, "I hope you like what I do but you scare the crap out of me."

When it comes to remakes, for me anyway, there is always a place for both points of view. I'm so glad they remade Sabrina because the second is my preference, and was made by a master filmmaker. I also (as an unabashed Ormond fan) love the fact that you can see her Sabrina thinking and evolving in almost every frame of her scenes. She begins as a silly kid, but only by the end understands real life, and to that extent is ultimately strong enough to survive Linus's cruel trick -- and to do so with a grace and kindness that most people would be unable to attain. She simply says, "You would have been happy too." She knows what he has lost. This makes the ending even sweeter.

But meanwhile the original is lovely and will always exist for those that love it best.

Cheers!

Thanks very much for this! I like the people in the original so much... I think it's easier sometimes to assume, "Oh, the original must be better," when honestly, sometimes that's just not the case.

I really love Audrey and Bogey and Holden, but in this case I never remotely bought Audrey's attraction to either one, while in the remake, both Kinnear and Ford are freaking adorable, and Ormond is picture-perfect as Sabrina.

I especially love in the remake the way they are able to balance Sabrina as a kind of naif-innocent (her crush on Linus's brother) with her as an also very wise person who has discovered who she is. What I really like there is that finding out who you are gives you an enormous foundation -- she is not worldly or experienced yet she is somehow formidable and armed because of her time in Paris, not because it is so awesome (although it is) but because she has found the answers in life she needed. Most people don't slow down long enough to do so.

It's a lovely, lovely movie and I am so glad they remade it. I always loved Julia Ormond's long hair and was horrified to hear she cut it for the film but of course it's absolutely adorable here and is certainly a nice visual reflection of her coming of age. It's a vastly underrated, light, sweet film. Right down to Sabrina's father's own love story.

Never saw the original but I read about the suicide scene and how it was left out of the remake. And I agree with you there.

Wilder read the script for the remake before filming and asked Sidney Pollack why it failed to include the suicide scene. Apparently Wilder was astounded at Pollack's response -- that the movie would otherwise be too long. Wilder was like, "What do you mean the picture's too long? The picture is the picture."

I would imagine Pollack was just being kind or coy and did not reveal the true reason, which is that suicide is not funny. Total buzz kill and psychological red flag for a character.

For a person to commit suicide, they've got to be sick or extremely, extremely troubled, and neither of those attributes are appealing in a love interest. Not really that sexy or alluring.

As luck would have it, I saw Sabrina(1995) first and loved it! Then my wife asked me to watch the original! - Oh boy was I disappointed!

The original was:

a) not funny

b) not a romance

c) Bogart is simply not my idea of a leading man!

All in all, the original was dark.

The remake was just fun to watch. Enjoyed the actors and how they portrayed their parts and the music! A gem!

I watched it again the other day after several years, and was charmed that I still love the 1995 version as much as I remembered. And I was reminded of another reason I love this version more than the 1950's version (as adorable as it was) -- the supporting characters are richer and are given more to do.

I can't think of a single supporting character here who isn't played by a fantastic actor, and the movie is filled with all these little moments that make the supporting characters seem like real people. Each seems to have an inner life and is played perfectly.

The Larrabees really seem like a family, and that's due to the wonderful presence of their mother, and the way Nancy Marchand brings so much humor and heart to her (like at her birthday, they tell her she has to go blow out the candles and she sighs, "Can't they just send someone?"). I love the scene when she's worrying about the situation -- not being a snob, she's not worried about David, she's worried about Sabrina,, to simply say, "Look, Sabrina, you're very lovely but David is going to end up yanking your chain and breaking your heart."

It's just nice that the emphasis is, time and again, on the Larrabees as pretty decent people at heart (fitting the fairytale feel). I also love her little moment at the end when Linus's scheme has apparently worked and she is tearful, telling him, "I never taught you this." It's that much more meaningful when, as Linus leaves for Paris, Ford does this lovely thing where he puts his hand on his mother's shoulder for a moment, and you know that all is forgiven, and that he is telling her she was right.

It's the same with almost all of the supporting characters. You get amazing people like *John Wood as Sabrina's Dad (who is just so warm and wonderful here -- so nice to see him play a good guy for once!), and Paul Giamatti, Becky Ann Baker, Miriam Colon, and more as the adorable servants (I love the moment when Becky Ann Baker is musing that Linus might be gay, and how that "makes [her] like him better"). It feels like there is a story to each of the household staff, like the little love story that's playing all the way through between Sabrina's Dad and the housekeeper ("Have you been watching 'Remains of the Day' again?").

I also love the fact that we get genuinely poignant moments in Paris (Fanny Ardant is impossibly beautiful and stylish, no wonder Sabrina is abashed), and then of course at Linus's office, Judith Ivey steals every scene she's in. The line, "We were up to our elbows in your underwear drawer -- it was like touching the Shroud of Turin!" will always make me laugh just thinking of it.)

I also have to give kudos to Greg Kinnear, who is very funny in a breezy way that's difficult to do, and to Harrison Ford, especially, who has this kind of desperation and loneliness at the end that is very believable and moving.

And Julia Ormond is just wonderful, and manages to play wise yet innocent in a believable way -- but then I've always found her so underrated. I thought she was just lovely here. I wouldn't begin to compare her to Audrey Hepburn -- I adored Hepburn but she manages to make Sabrina an interesting person in her own right here. For me, each brought something different to the role, and while Hepburn was timeless, I prefer Ormond's take on the character -- even as her heart breaks, she faces the situation honestly. She is a heroine, not someone to be deceived and set aside.

*NOTE: I was very sad at this past year's Oscars 'In Memoriam' segment, at the omission of Wood, who passed away last year -- he was a wonderful character actor who worked in literally dozens of films over several decades, and deserved to be mentioned. At least he was rightfully included by the BAFTAs.

Great post. I definitely agree that some of my complaints about the original are simply a sign of times and social mores that have changed in the four decades since.

However, I do think it's an interesting thing to look at, because of the progression in Sabrina's character, if that makes sense. Sabrina is the savior in the poem and the savior of Linus in the modern version and it doesn't have to be couched in terms like how happy she'll make him or what a good cook she is. I like that a lot.

I think my main problem with the original, which is just lovely by the way -- so I'm not dissing it -- I'm just speaking of my personal preference -- is that not on any planet in our universe can I imagine that Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart are actually in love in the original.

I just see no sparks at all, ever, between the two of them. He seems so ill at ease in the entire movie, which is partly I think his often shy and lovely character interpretation, but it keeps me sort of detached from his character. I loved Bogart doing something beyond his usual tough guys, but for me his Linus remains such a cipher.

When with Ford, even though he was a total smarmy jerk for many scenes (and he revels in it -- I just love the smarmy way he says, "So about your little poem," like he's got it all figured out, how boring), it was like you could still see that he was just kind of giving in to all of it. I love the fact that he looks surprised by almost everything she says -- that's exactly what you want love to be like -- that you'll always find them interesting and fascinating.

It's like Linus says: "First it was a lie. Then it was a dream."

I adored Bogart, but in this particular case, I just couldn't see his Linus actually making a life with Sabrina. She seems like she lives on a soap bubble in that gorgeous young Audrey way of hers, while he just seems so much older and more tired.

The original is beautiful though, and I definitely see why you and many others love it so much.

Which is what's cool -- I know people hate remakes and get upset about them, but I'm always so interested, because you never know when a remake can surprise you and show you an utterly different interpretation. Sure, many of them suck. But every once in awhile magic happens, and you get two lovely interpretations of one story to ponder.


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"I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not."