Original Sin, 2000

Additional Captures

Director/Screenwriter: Michael Cristofer ("Gia")

Co-stars: Angelina Jolie (Julia Russell/Bonny Castle); Thomas Jane (Walter Downey/Billy)

Release Date: August 3, 2001

Filming: Mexico

"This is not a love story. It is a story about love."

Antonio plays Cuban tobacco planter, Luis Vargas, who needs a wife, not for love but for children. However, he doesn't want a beautiful woman who will marry him for his money. Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie) is an American who doesn’t want a husband who wants her just for her beautiful face and body. Or so they both claim.

So Luis advertises for a wife in the American newspapers. The film opens as he excitedly goes to the docks to meet his plain bride-to-be. What greets him is not the simple and sturdy woman pictured, but the gorgeous and sexy Julia, who claims to have sent a picture of a plain woman so he would not marry her for her looks alone. Julia is not the only one doing the deceiving. Luis wrote in his letters that he worked in a tobacco factory when in fact he is the co-owner and quite wealthy. So, as Julia says, "neither one of us is to be trusted." What follows is a tale of deception, murder, passion and lust. In the end, the question Luis must ask himself is how far he is willing to go for love, and Julia will discover, perhaps when it is too late, what love is.

After a quick wedding, the two proceed to get to know one another, Luis vowing not to consummate the marriage until Julia is ready. It doesn't take long and a graphic but beautifully filmed love scene follows. It is obvious that the director was extremely conscious of the physical attributes of his two leading actors, and both, especially Antonio, are showcased in "all their glory".

Unfortunately, Luis should have been paying more attention when Julia commented that neither of them could be trusted. In reality, Luis is an open, even innocent man with nothing to hide, and he really knows nothing about his new bride, whose refusal to respond to her sister's letters from America understandably puzzles him. Even though Julia seems happy herself, there is an aura of mystery and even sadness about this boldly sensual woman who proves to be a classic femme fatale and con artist of the first order.

Enter a mysterious and slightly greasy American detective, who claims Julia's sister has sent him out of worry for the fate of her sister. When Luis tells Julia he is coming to see her, Julia realizes time has run out. While Luis is at work, she empties his bank account and disappears, sending Luis, who has come to love her deeply, into a drunken and suicidal depression as he realizes how deeply he has been deceived. His single goal in life becomes his pursuit and murder of Julia.

He travels to Havana with the detective, Walter Downey, where Luis finds Julia baiting another poor man. What follows is an eye-opening experience for Luis as he learns in quick succession that Julia is, well, not Julia, but in fact an orphan named Bonny Castle (after a picture postcard) who, with her fellow orphan, lover and con person, Billy (the detective), killed the real Julia Russell. The plan was to steal all of Luis's money and move on. However, Bonny actually did fall in love with Luis and ran out on him to escape Billy's plan to murder Luis. Luis realizes that he doesn't care and will love the woman who was born the day he married her. Unfortunately, Billy is still planning to kill him, which Luis discovers. In a touching scene, even though he knows it is laced with rat poison, Luis professes his love for Bonny and drinks the coffee, at which moment Bonny realizes how much she truly loves Luis. She kills Billy to protect Luis and they escape to Morocco to live happily ever after. Or do they?

The film was not received well by either critics or audiences. A great deal of focus was given to the sexual content of the film, Angelina's larger-than-life lips and the physical beauty of the two main stars. Granted, the director did not do justice to a classic 1940s mystery and, although it was beautifully filmed, you never quite believe in the depth of Luis's gullibility. He was consumed by a passion and love so great that he literally gave up everything for the woman he foolishly worshipped. It is interesting to note that in the novel Luis dies in Julia's arms, at which point she realizes that she truly loved him and has lost everything. While we never like to see Antonio die in films (despite the fact that he does it so well!), it would perhaps have been a more believable ending to a tragic love story than the somewhat sappy ending Cristofer tacked on. Apparently, the ending was changed when test audiences did not like the original one.

Related Information

This was not the first time the director and Jolie worked together. He wrote and directed, and she starred in, the award-winning HBO movie "Gia".

The movie is based on the 1947 novel "Waltz into Darkness" by Cornell Woolrich. He is most remembered for writing "Rear Window", which became the classic Hitchcock film starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly.

The love scene, which is much more graphic on the DVD "uncut" version, was filmed with Angelina and Antonio completely naked (no "pasties" over sensitive parts as is the norm) at Angelina's suggestion.

Antonio said in countless interviews during the press junket that he felt that his role in this film was his best work in America. How disappointing it must have been to then have the film trashed by virtually every print and television critic. Hey, we loved it!

Here are some comments about Antonio from the director, Michael Cristofer, which are contained on the DVD:

“Shooting in Mexico was really terrific. Antonio had a hard time. We had a hard time in locations, especially in the bigger towns. There are very few American film stars who are as successful as he is and who are Latin, even though there is quite a rivalry that goes on in many areas between people from Mexico and people from Spain. Wherever we went there were days where we had to quiet the crowds who would just stand outside locations screaming his name. ‘Antonio! Antonio! Antonio!’. It was extraordinary. I’ve never had to deal with that before. On the other hand, unlike Americans in that situation, when we did speak to them and explain to them what we were trying to do, the same sort of 500,000 people who were clogging the streets would suddenly clear immediately for us or…instantly they were quiet. So, they were lovely and helpful and never caused us any real problems in terms of…we never had to stop shooting. But they just chased him everywhere (laughing)!”

“…I was still looking for an American or a Brit to play the male lead. And then I discovered that Antonio had long ago seen the Truffaut version of the story and had tried to option the material for himself. When I found that out I pursued him to see if he was still interested and I sent him the script and he responded very positively. And that was the clincher for MGM. I think they were very happy…the combination of Antonio and Angelina was a good one. So then I changed the script to play the character as a Cuban national.”

“There were several American actors and one English actor who were circling the part, but, as much as they all seemed to want to do it, they had reservations about the character. There would always be the one point where suddenly the conversation would stop and the actor would say ‘I don’t understand, why does he put up with so much from this woman? Why doesn’t he do something? Why doesn’t he act, do something to protect himself?’ I realized slowly that…well, it wasn’t slowly…I realized when Antonio came on board that the sensibility that he had, which is, I guess, more European, the notion of someone passionately falling in love with someone, being so obsessed by someone, that it puts blinders on them, that it shuts them down to the dangers that are involved in the person, in the woman…this was something American actors, they had a hard time embracing.”

His comments about the “sex scene”:

“The story is about sexual obsession. Sex is a key element in the story. There is only one so-called sex scene in the picture…it was very important. All three of us knew it was, and so we went for it, and both Angelina and Antonio were very brave. We shot some very good, interesting and explicit stuff which, of course, we then had to cut. When you do these scenes, the first thing that happens, of course, there was a discussion of nudity, and then you’d start having to deal with these patches that get taped to their private parts, both the man and the woman. Finally, Angie said, ‘you know, we can’t do this unless I’m totally nude, so you better tell Antonio that I’m gonna do that.’ So I, the messenger, went over to Antonio and said that Angie’s decided she needs to really be nude for this if you guys are going to have any freedom. He said, ‘fine, that’s what I’ll do to.’ They talked and they laughed about whatever might happen. And then we did it. I started them in the bed with just still poses which happen actually at the end of the scene, but I did those first. So they were just lying there and I was just doing camera circles above them, overhead shots. And then I just asked them to move slightly as if it were ‘after’. I did the ‘after’ part of the scene first so they got used to being in the bed together and they got used to being naked together, and then actually after awhile I…I gave them a few directions and they sort of took off on their own.” (No joke did they!!)

Synopsis by Lisa