Saffron Burrows Movies

The My Left Foot team of star Daniel Day-Lewis and director Jim Sheridan were reunited to make this political docudrama about Irish citizen Gerry Conlon (Day-Lewis), who was wrongly convicted of taking part in an IRA bombing that killed five in Guildford, England in 1974. After a brutal interrogation forces him to sign a false confession, Gerry is sentenced to prison, his family is raked over the coals, and later his father Giuseppe (Pete Postelthwaite) is charged with being an accomplice and is also sent to prison where he lives out the last days of his life. Day-Lewis gives an outstanding performance as a man tormented by the injustice served him. Watch for Emma Thompson as the persevering lawyer who works for years, gathering evidence to clear Gerry's name. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Racial conflicts provide the impetus for this heavy, socially conscious British drama. The film begins in North Carolina, 1652, as an Ibo family calmly walks into the sea to drown themselves. To them death was preferable to slavery. The film quickly shoots into a future time, not too distant from our own, where the incarnated family lives in the Terrordome, a rundown ghetto neighborhood. There viciously racist Anglo policemen continually spar with drug-dealing gangs. Spike, a black gangster, is in love with a white woman. She's pregnant and ends up having an abortion after her former boyfriend beats her. Black Rad gets revenge by taking over a TV station after his wife, one of Spike's relations, is killed by police. She had rampaging around with a gun. On TV, Black Rad reads his propaganda. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A man tries to win the hand of the love of his life -- which is an uphill battle, since she's about to get married -- in this romantic comedy from Australia. Seventeen-year-old Stephen (Simon Bossell) first sees Melissa (Saffron Burrows) across the room at a party, and from that moment on, he's hopelessly in love with her. However, as he's crossing the room to introduce himself, who should get there first but his fraternal twin brother Rick (Alden Young). While Stephen is the brighter of the two, Rick is more attractive and outgoing, and Stephen quickly realizes that he doesn't stand a chance with Melissa if Rick is his competition. Ten years later, Stephen is doing quite well as a stockbroker, though his love life remains a disaster, while Rick is the manager of the Hotel de Love, a cheesy honeymoon resort complete with heart-shaped bathtubs for two and artificial indoor waterfalls. While Stephen is paying his brother a visit at the hotel, who should check in but Melissa, with her bookish fiancé Norman (Peter O'Brien) in tow. While Melissa is surprised to see her former flame Rick, she has no idea that Stephen still carries a torch for her after all these years. Stephen tries to win Melissa away from Norman, which given his romantic ineptitude is no easy task; he seeks advice from Alison (Pippa Grandison), Rick's girlfriend, who works as a fortune teller at the hotel, though the results are not what anyone expected. Meanwhile, Stephen and Rick's quarrelsome parents, Jack and Edith (Ray Barrett and Julia Blake), have come to the hotel for a second honeymoon, and they hope to patch up their marriage. Hotel de Love was the feature debut for writer/director Craig Rosenberg. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A woman fleeing the man in her life discovers a city of women in this revisionist western. Chrysty (Amy Brenneman) is passing through the Nevada desert when she happens upon the small town of Silver, currently populated entirely by women and children, while the men in the community are gone -- working on a dam building project. When Chrysty discovers June (Bridgette Wilson) alone and in labor, she helps her as she gives birth; Chrysty opts to stay around, and she takes a job delivering milk. Silver is ruled by McGill (Kirstie Alley), the village's self-appointed sheriff who doesn't trust Chrysty; McGill discovers that Chrysty is actually an Idaho housewife running away from her husband, West (Angus MacFadyen). However, June's husband Rip (James Wilder), back in town after the birth of a child that may not be his and troubled by his wife's chronic infidelity, has fallen in love with Chrysty, and when West arrives to Silver to retrieve his spouse, Rip opts to fight for her hand. Nevada also features Saffron Burrows as June's sister-in-law, and Dee Wallace Stone and Kathy Najimy as a rough-and-tumble lesbian couple. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular series of video games, Wing Commander introduces us to an elite fighter squadron in the year 2654. The Earth confederation is at war with a vicious race called the Kilrathi. The Kilrathi have captured a navigational device which will allow them to jump through worm-holes in space to arrive behind enemy lines. Only this highly trained squadron, led by three young pilots, stand in their way. Christopher "Maverick" Blair (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is just out of the Academy, but his lack of experience is more than compensated by his exceptional navigational skills, though he is still haunted by the deaths of his parents in a previous galactic war. His friend, Todd "Maniac" Mashall (Matthew Lillard), is a brash, gung-ho fighter jock always rushing into danger. Their wing commander and leader is Jeanette "Angel" Deveraux (Saffron Burrows). Assigned these two new pilots by Admiral Geoffery Tolwyn (David Warner), the strong and beautiful Deveraux is at first resentful, but later develops feelings for Blair. Perhaps the two will find time for romance on their way to saving the solar system. ~ Ron Wells, All Movie Guide

Director Mike Figgis, creator of the Academy award-winning Leaving Las Vegas, presented this film's world premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. The story is made up of non-linear, interconnected episodes about a man at different stages of his life, all of which explicate thematically the film's title. The film also juxtaposes a retelling of the classic biblical fall-from-grace tale of Adam and Eve. We see the leading character, Nic, at 5 years old as a boy in colonial Kenya, at age 16 in swinging London in the '60s, and as a grown man working as a film ethnographer. Each sequence shows how he lost some degree of his sexual innocence, whether it be through love, puberty, or masturbation. Shot all over the world, including Tunisia, Italy, and England, the film is an exploration of sex and loss through the life of one individual. ~ Arthur Borman, All Movie Guide

Director Mike Figgis helmed this ground-breaking experimental feature, filmed with four synchronized digital video cameras in four separate locations. The story, outlined in advance but otherwise improvised, was enacted in a single continuous take, like a stage play, with the unedited images from all four locations presented on the screen at once. Figgis and his crew chose the best single run-through, and the result is the film's final release version. The story focuses on four main characters around the casting sessions for a film called Bitch of Louisiana to be directed by Lester Moore (Richard Edson): Alex Green (Stellan Skarsgard), the studio executive overseeing Moore's project; his wife Emma (Saffron Burrows); gangster Lauren Hathaway (Jeanne Tripplehorn); and her unfaithful lover Rose (Salma Hayek). These characters' paths cross as murder, infidelity, and dirty dealings are interrupted by an earthquake and its aftershocks. Time Code 2000 also features Kyle MacLachlan, Holly Hunter, Julian Sands, Steven Weber, Danny Huston, Viveka Davis, and Laurie Metcalf. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The sophomore American film from Aussie director Bill Bennett, Tempted was improvised by the cast based on a one-page synopsis and outline. To test his wife's loyalty after he is diagnosed with a fatal disease, Charlie Le Blanc (Burt Reynolds) offers to pay financially struggling law student Jimmy Mulate (Peter Facinelli) $50,000 if the young man can seduce Charlie's wife Lilly (Saffron Burrows). Lilly turns down Jimmy's initial advances, but soon uncovers the plot and decides to exact a measure of revenge by sleeping with Jimmy. Charlie is overcome with jealousy and is convinced by his right-hand man Dot (Mike Star) that Lilly should be killed. Charlie hires Jimmy to kill her, but Jimmy has fallen in love with her. Tempted was screened at the Deauville Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The true story of a major breakthrough in intelligence technology created during World War II provides the backdrop for this blend of mystery, romance, and espionage, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) is a gifted mathematician who is working with the British government on the development and maintenance of the Enigma machine, an electronic device that allows Allied intelligence agents to decode scrambled messages sent by Germany military officers. But the emotionally fragile Jericho is buckling under both the pressure of his work and the collapse of his relationship with Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), a co-worker with whom he's fallen deeply in love. After suffering a minor breakdown, Jericho is sent on a leave of absence, but when he returns to work, a crisis awaits: it seems the Germans have instituted a new code that the Enigma is not yet able to crack, and Jericho is needed to help unravel Axis communiqués before an important convoy of troops and materiel sets sail. It is also suspected that a German undercover agent has infiltrated the Enigma project, and Wigram (Jeremy Northam) is determined to ferret them out. In the midst of all this, Jericho receives troubling news that Claire has gone missing -- and that a file of German messages waiting to be decoded was found at her home. As Jericho works against the clock to crack the new German code, he forms an initially uneasy alliance with Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), Claire's roommate and a fellow member of the Enigma project, as they try to discover Claire's whereabouts. Enigma was co-produced by Mick Jagger, who has a keen interest in the history of the real-life Enigma project, and even owns one of the original Enigma decoding machines. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After being attached to a number of actors, directors, and producers, this long-gestating biography of one of Mexico's most prominent, iconoclastic painters reaches the screen under the guiding hand of producer/star Salma Hayek. Hayek ages some 30 years onscreen as she charts Frida Kahlo's life from feisty schoolgirl to Diego Rivera protégée to world-renowned artist in her own right. Frida details Kahlo's affluent upbringing in Mexico City, and her nurturing relationship with her traditional mother (Patricia Reyes Spindola) and philosophical father (Roger Rees). Having already suffered the crippling effects of polio, Kahlo sustains further injuries when a city bus accident nearly ends her life. But in her bed-ridden state, the young artist produces dozens upon dozens of pieces; when she recovers, she presents them to the legendary -- and legendarily temperamental -- Rivera (Alfred Molina), who takes her under his wing as an artist, a political revolutionary, and, inevitably, a lover. But their relationship is fraught with trouble, as the philandering Rivera traverses the globe painting murals, and Kahlo languishes in obscurity, longing to make her mark on her own. Frida was directed by Julie Taymor, whose Broadway production of The Lion King won her international acclaim. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Gerardo Herrero's political drama El Misterio Galíndez (The Galindez File) uses the real life 1956 disappearance of Spanish political refugee Jesus de Galindez as its subject. Saffron Burrows plays a privileged college girl named Muriel who travels to Spain in order to finish her doctoral thesis about political rebellion; Galindez is the main focus of her work. With the help of a pair of locals (Guillermo Toledo and Txema Blasco), she learns that Galindez was publicly critical of the Dominican Republic's political leaders who may have been responsible for his death. Muriel eventually travels to Miami in order to uncover the truth. She is opposed throughout her search by an FBI agent (Harvey Keitel) who wants keep the truth hidden as it would reveal unpleasant facts about the United States' role in his disappearance. The film was screened at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Raúl Ruiz's Klimt uses an amorphous, nonchronological narrative to cinematize events from the life of one of the 20th century's most profound artists: the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (here portrayed by John Malkovich). Ruiz begins with Klimt's painful death from syphilis, and spends the remainder of the film transitioning, loosely and freely, between episodes that befell the painter. The film pays particularly strong attention to the artist's proclivity for scandalizing the European upper crust with overtly erotic subject matter and presentation, and his many affairs -- notably a lengthy one with his perpetual inspiration, Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows). Throughout Klimt's life, a figure known as the Secretary (Stephen Dillane) comes and goes, who is actually a product of his fevered imagination -- and with whom the painter debates continually about the function of art in contemporary Western civilization, and the relevance of the artist. This enables Ruiz to create both a biographical sketch and a philosophical treatise. Visually, Ruiz and director of photography Ricardo Aronovich make the ambitious decision to recreate Klimt's style of painting on a cinematographic plane.

Unfortunately, difficulty befell this picture from the beginning, when the director (for some unascertainable reason) opted to draft the initial script in French, have it translated into German, and then have the German draft translated into English and revised by author Gilbert Adair -- rendering the dialogue stilted and unconvincing. Complications also arose on the distribution end. Still infuriated by the distributive mutilation that befell his previous film, the whopping Time Regained (and doubtless concerned that this might happen again), Ruiz pliantly struck a bargain with distributors for Klimt. He trimmed his original, 135-minute "director's cut" down to a 96-minute "producer's cut" for general consumption, which rendered much of the material less fluid and coherent. Both versions screened at the 2006 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide