Brian De Palma once again shows his obsession for Alfred Hitchcock. He brings in some overwrought music from Bernard Herrmann.
This is another stylish but flawed film from De Palma with a dreamlike romantic mystery to cover up a controversial strand of the storyline.
Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson) is a real estate developer in New Orleans whose wife Elizabeth (Geneviève Bujold) and daughter Amy are kidnapped. From the advice of the police, he does not pay the ransom. A botched rescue attempt leads to his wife and daughter's death.
Michael is left devastated. 16 years later, he goes on a business trip to Italy with his business partner Robert LaSalle (John Lithgow.) To his astonishment he meets Sandra Portinari, a woman who looks like his late wife at the same church he originally met her in Italy.
Michael becomes obsessed with Sandra and asks her to marry him. When he brings her to New Orleans, his friends and colleagues are worry about Michael. Fate plays a cruel twist on him as Sandra disappears one morning.
This is a moody, uneven and a slow moving thriller. De Palma is yet to master suspense and the script he co-wrote with Paul Schrader is choppy.
Bujold is very good in a difficult role. Robertson looks like a television actor who struck it lucky with an Oscar. He is just too bland. Lithgow on the other hand is too fruity who signals his nefarious hand in any twist in the plot.
