Sabrina (1995)

Sydney Pollack's 1995 Sabrina arrives at the examination table as a remake of a Billy Wilder picture, which itself came from a stage play, and it wears the manners of an earlier era like a pressed dinner jacket. Harrison Ford plays Linus Larrabee, a workaholic who redirects a chauffeur's daughter away from his younger brother and, through the ordinary mechanics of farce, into his own arms. Julia Ormond is Sabrina, transformed in Paris from an unnoticed girl into a poised woman. The Long Island estate is handsomely photographed. The whole enterprise is polished, unhurried, and entirely at ease with its own money.

The cultural inventory here is thin. The cast is Anglo from top to bottom, with Miriam Colón's brief appearance serving as the film's entire gesture toward a wider world. There is no LGBTQ presence, no racial inquiry, no environmental concern, no body-positivity argument, no neurodivergent character. Sabrina's Parisian education grants her self-possession, which counts for something, though the film's actual thesis is that a woman's value is settled when two brothers compete for her. Linus is teased as a heartless corporate machine, and the script permits itself a line about morals and scruples, but the closing act celebrates the billion-dollar merger, the family fortune, and the chauffeur's private stock windfall. Any critique of capital is promptly returned to the vault.

As instruction, the film barely registers. It wants to charm, and it does so with a John Williams score and a great deal of soft light. No sermons are delivered. No lessons are assigned. A gentle, low-yield specimen, best filed under nostalgia.