The Fever

You know Hollywood considers you over-the-hill when they repeatedly cast you as the “old dying woman.” After playing that part in Evening, the great Vanessa Redgrave once again assumes the role in the HBO movie The Fever, an adaptation of Wallace Shawn’s play. Redgrave is directed by Carlo Gabriel Nero, her son (with actor Franco Nero), while daughter Joely Richardson (from her marriage to director Tony Richardson) plays her as a young woman. All of this is more interesting than the actual film, a strident yawner in which Redgrave has a dull conversation with herself about consumerism while laying sick in an unnamed, war-torn country. The cast features Angelina Jolie as a super-hot peasant revolutionary, and Michael Moore (yes, that Michael Moore) as a reporter prattling about ice cream.