Amateur (1994 film)

Amateur is a 1994 comedy crime drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley and starring Isabelle Huppert, Martin Donovan and Elina Löwensohn.[1] The story revolves around an ex-nun who gets mixed up in pornography, violence and international crime but ends up intact in the convent she left.

Amateur
Promotional poster for the film
Directed byHal Hartley
Written byHal Hartley
StarringIsabelle Huppert
Martin Donovan
Elina Löwensohn
Michael Gaston
Production
company
Distributed bySony Pictures Classics (US)
Artificial Eye (UK)
Release date
1994
CountryUnited States
United Kingdom
France
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Still a virgin after 15 years in a convent, the demure Isabelle earns her living in New York by writing pornography, which she researches by buying magazines and hiring videos. In a café she befriends Thomas, who has amnesia after falling from a window. In another café, an accountant called Edward is befriended by Sofia, who pushed Thomas out of the window because, she says, he introduced her to drugs at the age of 12 and made her into a celebrated porn actress. She now wants revenge on Jacques, a crooked businessman for whom both Thomas and Edward worked. Learning from Edward that Thomas has data on disk that could destroy Jacques, she steals Jacques' phone number from Edward's address book while he is in the restroom. Upon returning, Edward gives her the address of a house upstate where she can hide. After contacting Jacques to blackmail him, she meets Edward at Grand Central Terminal, where he mentions that Sofia should not talk about the disks with anyone, since Jacques kills anyone who knows about them. Having agreed to meet one of Jacques' men at Grand Central to give him the address to her apartment where the disks are, Sofia urges Edward to come with her to the house upstate, afraid both she and Edward will end up being killed. She then leaves the station only to see Jacques' hit men shoving Edward into a car. They take him to an abandoned building to torture him and leave him for dead.

Meanwhile, in a hired video Thomas sees Sofia in action and his memory starts returning. With Isabelle he retraces his steps and finds the flat where he and Sofia lived. Isabelle dresses in one of Sofia's sexy outfits and is on the point of losing her virginity to him when someone enters and the two hastily hide. It is Jacques' hit men looking for Sofia, who arrives shortly thereafter only to be tied up by the hit men who begin to torture her. Bursting out, Thomas and Isabelle throw one hit man out of the window and, freeing Sofia, make off with her in the other hit man's car. Sofia suggests they head for the empty country cottage Edward had told her about. On the way Isabelle posts the disks to her publisher, asking him to expose the evil of Jacques after having viewed the files while at the apartment.

When the surviving hit man traces them to the cottage, he wounds Sofia before being shot dead by Edward who arrives in a stolen car. The four make off before the police arrive and Isabelle directs them to her former convent, where they are given sanctuary and the dying Sofia is tended. But the convent is surrounded by armed police, who want Edward for murder. Thomas, his conscience awakened by the kindness and care Isabelle has shown, by the realisation of his criminal past, and by guilt over the fate of Sofia, walks out of the front gate and is killed instantly by a police marksman.

Cast

Soundtrack
Amateur
Soundtrack album by
Various artists
GenreSoundtrack
LabelMatador Records

The soundtrack features excerpts from various alternative artists:

The soundtrack also included original music by "Ned Rifle" (a pseudonym used by Hal Hartley) and Jeff Taylor. It was released by Matador Records.

Reception

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively gave the film an approval rating of 78%, based on 27 reviews with an average rating of 6.1/10.[2]

Year-end lists

See also

References
  1. Pall, Ellen (9 April 1995). "FILM; The Elusive Women Who Inhabit The Quirky Films of Hal Hartley". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  2. "Amateur (1995)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  3. Mills, Michael (30 December 1994). "It's a Fact: 'Pulp Fiction' Year's Best". The Palm Beach Post (Final ed.). p. 7.
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