Miguel Gomes‘ stunning “Grand Tour” is a trek through yearning, spanning both time and space.
The film, which premiered at Cannes in 2024 where Gomes won Best Director, was later acquired by MUBI for release. “Grand Tour” takes it title in stride: The film begins in 1917 Burma, where British diplomat Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) ditches his fiancée Molly (Crista Alfaiate) after getting cold feet before their nuptials. Edward instead sets off on a pursuit across Asia, with Molly following suit.
The film is billed by MUBI as a “melodrama and screwball comedy with a cat-and-mouse chase between lovers.”
“Grand Tour” includes black-and-white period visuals with modern-day documentary footage to span from Saigon to Shanghai onscreen. The film was Portugal’s Best International Feature entry to the 97th Academy Awards.
“I think I’m really attached to Portuguese cinema,” Gomes told IndieWire. “Portugal doesn’t have a film industry. Because of the economical context, we don’t have a big market. This is bad in itself. On the other hand, it allows Portuguese cinema to escape a little bit from the tyranny of the industry, saying you have to shoot with this actor or shoot the film this way… I understand it’s not the same even in France or even here in the States, but in Portugal, it is the director’s job to frame and to choose the lens, it is the cinematographer’s job to make the light.”
“Tabu” and “Arabian Nights” director Gomes added to IndieWire that the plot for “Grand Tour” was inspired by W. Somerset Maugham’s 1930 book “The Gentleman in the Parlour.” The “central committee” for “Grand Tour,” including Gomes’ co-writers Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro, and Maureen Fazendeiro, opted to pair the fake 1930s Hollywood-soundstage version of Asia with a mix of real, contemporary footage of China that Gomes filmed remotely from an Airbnb in Portugal during the pandemic lockdown.
The IndieWire review pointed to how that blend of film styles added another layer to “Grand Tour.”
“This mixture of studio footage and canned exteriors reflects the construction of the classic Hollywood romances that ‘Grand Tour’ sometimes resembles, but the effect deliberately runs counter to that overlap, drawing more attention to the disconnect between Western cinema’s idea of ‘the orient’ and the reality of how life appears in those same countries today,” critic David Ehrlich wrote. “When ‘Grand Tour’ finally arrives at its twistiest moment of meta self-reflection, it almost seems as if Gomes — whose films always reflect his free-wheeling approach to their construction — is punishing his characters for their very different but equally strong allegiances to a predetermined choice.”
“Grand Tour” premieres in theaters March 28 and on MUBI April 18. Check out the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
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