Regina Lambert has been married for three months. She returns to Paris to find her apartment vandalized and her husband missing. A police official produces her husband's passport--and another, and another. He had many looks and many identities, and is missing in all of them. And now she seems surrounded by unsavory people with a dangerous interest in finding his $6 million. They say she knows where it is. Thank goodness for good, kind Joshua Peters, who turns up protectively whenever he's needed. 

This story, right down to the names, will be familiar to lovers of "Charade," Stanley Donen's 1963 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Now Jonathan Demme recycles it in "The Truth About Charlie," with Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg in the starring roles. Wahlberg will never be confused with Cary Grant but Newton, now ... Newton, with her fragile beauty, her flawless complexion, her beautiful head perched atop that extraordinary neck ... well, you can see how Demme thought of Hepburn when he cast her. 

"Charade" is considered in many quarters to be a masterpiece (no less than the 168th best film of all time, according to the Internet Movie Database). I saw it recently on the sparkling Criterion DVD, enjoyed it, remember it fondly, but do not find it a desecration that Demme wanted to remake it. There are some films that are ineffably themselves, like "The Third Man," and cannot possibly be remade. Others depend on plots so silly and effervescent that they can be used over and over, as vehicles for new generations of actors. "Charade" is in the latter category. If it is true that there will never be another Audrey Hepburn, and it is, I submit it is also true that there will never be another Thandie Newton. 

I saw her first in "Flirting" (1991), made when she was 18. It was a glowing masterpiece about adolescent love. She has been in 15 films since then, but you may not remember her. She was the lost child in Demme's "Beloved" (1998), looking like a ghost and not herself, and she played Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's slave and lover, in the unsuccessful "Jefferson in Paris" (1995). I liked her in Bertolucci's "Besieged" (1998), although the film didn't work and he photographed her with almost unseemly interest. She was in the overlooked but very good "Gridlock'd" (1997), Tupac Shakur's last film. If you have seen her at all, it may have been in "Mission: Impossible II," opposite Tom Cruise. 

She carries "The Truth About Charlie," as she must, because all of the other characters revolve around her, sometimes literally. Wahlberg has top billing but that must be a contractual thing; she is the center of the picture, and the news is, she is a star. She has that presence and glow. The plot is essentially a backdrop, as it was in "Charade," for Paris, suspense, romance and star power, 

I am not sure the plot matters enough to be kept a secret, but I will try not to give away too much. Essentially, Charlie was a deceptive, two-timing louse who made some unfortunate friends. Now that he has gone several strange people emerge from the woodwork, some to threaten Regina, some, like Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins) to help and advise her. There is an Asian named Il-Sang Lee (Joong-Hoon Park) and a femme fatale named Lola (Lisa Gay Hamilton), and a police commandant (Christine Boisson) who appears to seek only the truth. And there is the omnipresent, always helpful Joshua Peters (Wahlberg), who was Peter Joshua in "Charade," but there you go. 

These people all serve one function: To propel Regina past locations in Paris, from the Champs Elysses to the flea market at Cligancourt, and to accompany her through several costume changes and assorted dangers and escapes. "The history of the cinema," said Jean-Luc Godard, "is of boys photographing girls." There is more to it than that, but both "The Truth About Charlie" and "Charade" prove that is enough.

The Truth About Charlie updates the classic Audrey Hepburn-Cary Grant caper Charade, about a beautiful widow in Paris stalked for a fortune she never knew about, with the freedom and euphoria of a moviemaking team on a creative spree.

With incandescent Thandie Newton as the heroine, stalwart Mark Wahlberg as the enigmatic American who comes to her aid, and slippery Tim Robbins as an officious helpmate from the American Embassy, director Jonathan Demme treats the premise as a great big snowball that he can roll merrily down a fresh new slope. You can almost hear him laughing as it changes shape and picks up size and momentum.

Among the things it gathers as it grows are a view of Paris that's both old school and up-to-the-minute - equal parts high glamour and gutter panache, with a multicultural texture that fits the sizzling world-music soundtrack. But there's also a recovery of the virtuous heroine as a chic love object and of the lean, not-so-mean American as a romantic figure. (Wahlberg is, intentionally, more Gary Cooper in Desire than Cary Grant in Charade.)

Best of all, the movie's eclectic, prismatic style opens your eyes and enlivens your senses instead of overwhelming them (and numbing them) in the contemporary fashion. With Newton, Demme has a star who elicits instant affection and is able to move from slapstick pathos to true grit. So it feels natural for Demme to employ a free-floating camera that can shift with her moods and light-fingered editing that can plunge into fantasy or flashback at the speed of wit.

Few performers have ever been as deft at expressing a brainy person's confusion as Newton is here, and few have had the luck to have a director like Demme, who has the confidence to make an audience feel equally discombobulated, the skill to make that feeling pleasurable, and the dramatic intelligence to make Regina's moments of clarity satisfying.

The Truth About Charlie is about daring to move beyond the familiar and confronting the unknown. And it operates that way as a movie. Not only does the story take the original Charade onto untrod paths, but Demme goes on to energize the film with references that veer from the French New Wave of the '60s to the ultra-contemporary Run Lola Run. And he puts together a soundtrack that starts with classic pop - Charles Aznavour singing love songs in a cameo as funny as Marshall McLuhan's in Annie Hall (yet also moving) - then takes in vital and seductive mixtures of Asian, African and European rhythms and sounds.

Newton's Regina, or Reggie for short, is a Londoner who wed art-dealer Charles (Stephen Dillane) after a whirlwind courtship and has been married only three months when he's killed. Most of Paris is still a mystery to her - certainly the parts that she enters when trying to figure out the motives of three menacing strangers (Ted Levine, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Joong-Hoon Park).

It's a triumph for Newton's openhearted performing and Demme's strategizing that we're right with her as she visits a carnival, a flea market, a toy store and a tango club to decipher a plot rooted in a double-cross that started years before in the Balkans. Along the way, laughs and thrills emerge swiftly and unexpectedly. They spring up from odd sights, like a wrinkled matriarch peering at Reggie with jarring intensity. Or from quizzical compositions, like heads seen from a morgue slab as they peer down at a body (which grows funnier and spookier with every repetition). Or from Anna Karina belting out "Charade D'Amour" as Reggie changes partners in a goofy, sinister tango.

Wahlberg's semi-feigned, semi-real earnestness plays off beautifully against Newton's transparency. So does Robbins' unctuousness - he hasn't been this droll since The Player. And Demme's refusal to underline the gags or to set his stars above the rest of the ensemble pays off bigtime with Levine, Hamilton and Park. Levine, best known as the straight-man police chief to Tony Shalhoub's phobic detective on TV's Monk, is both threatening and risible as a severe hypochondriac himself, with acupuncture needles hanging from his head and a pharmacy on his table.

Hamilton begins ferociously and becomes touching and amusing (though still surly) when she softens on Reggie. And Park squints at the camera ambiguously, as if asking, "I look like a hero, don't I? Why am I some kind of a villain in this movie?"

Actually, no one is a villain in The Truth About Charlie - except maybe Charlie, and he's dead already. The picture is over before you realize Demme has managed to fill a thriller with tension without firing a shot and to suffuse it with comedy without resorting to bathroom humor. (The one toilet joke here is a quick flash of Reggie and Charles brushing their teeth with smokers' toothpaste, side by side.) Without any proselytizing for the brotherhood of man, the whole movie has a vibrant internationalism; in its own art-for-art's sake way, it embraces the world.

Big time. 

Based on the 1963 Stanley Donen film "Charade," starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, this version -- directed by Academy Award winner Jonathan Demme -- lacks the former's whimsy and charm. No matter how you slice it, Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton are not Hepburn and Grant, two cinematic icons with chemistry galore. With Walhberg and Newton, instead of surging, hot hormones, you get slow-dripping, lukewarm tap water. 

The audience is never invited in to care about anyone involved in the story. The script lacks anything even resembling character development. In all fairness, the original script was also thin and didn't make much sense either, but Donen's direction and the combined charisma of his two stars carried the day. 

Another problem with "Charlie" is that Demme can't seem to decide if it's a suspense drama or a romantic thriller. The romance seems to have been glossed over as an after thought, and it's hard to be thrilled when the dramatic jeopardy is so obviously manufactured. 

Mysterious people
The premise, such as it is, has Newton's character, Regina Lampert coming home to Paris from a holiday. She finds her apartment cleaned out and all her possessions missing. Her new husband, Charlie (Stephen Dillane), has been murdered. 
 
She turns to the authorities in the form of a highly cynical Parisian commandant, played by Christine Boisson, and a strange man named Mr. Bartholomew, played with glassy-eyed indifference by Tim Robbins. They seem to consider Regina a prime suspect, and all they can tell her is that Charlie was not who he pretended to be: He had stolen $6 million from some very nasty people. And those people are convinced that Regina knows where the money is hidden. 

Enter a mysterious American, Joshua Peters, played by Wahlberg. He always seems to show up just when Regina is in trouble -- which, of course, is most of the time. 

In the role of Peters, Wahlberg is woefully in over his head. The multi-layered role requires a very subtle approach, but Wahlberg constantly looks as if he's standing around just waiting for his next cue. Newton is pretty and displays plenty of charm, but she might as well be alone on screen. 

Hatchet job
The direction is also purely paint-by-the-numbers. Demme can be an excellent filmmaker (just look at 1991's "The Silence Of The Lambs" or 1993's "Philadelphia"), but this time around, his creativity seems to have been in Park. He does create visual -- albeit empty -- energy on screen with this misquided salute to French New Wave cinema, and the exterior shots of Paris are wonderful. It's plain to see that Demme is in love with the City of Lights. 
 
But the next time he gets an urge to visit, he should do it on his own dime and not do a hatchet job on a film just to get someone to finance his stay in Paris. 

One saving grace for cinemaphiles: "The Truth About Charlie" does provide fleeting cameos by director Agnes Varda and French New Wave mainstay Anna Karina. There is even a small moment with Charles Aznavour performing. But those nice little flourishes can't make up for the mind-numbing dullness of this exercise in futility. 

If you can handle the truth, then here it is: Stay away from "The Truth About Charlie." 

There's a review of "The Truth About Charlie" coming, but first you must endure a self-indulgent recollection.

This 5-year-old kid back in the '60s is staying with his grandparents, and Grandma Bertha subscribes to the TV-as-babysitter system to keep the boy occupied.

One day, up comes some macabre but merry crime romp about a classy older gent, a peppy young flirt and some thugs, including one with a hook for a hand, a rattling notion for a boy yet to see "Peter Pan."

Then comes the scene when a bathroom door is flung open to reveal hook guy drowned in an overflowing tub, bearing the most vacant expression the kid's ever seen on a human face. The kid's first real taste of an adult film has taught him life's scariest lesson, that one day, everybody's face will go as blank as hook guy's.

The image sticks with him for decades, though he remembers almost nothing else about the movie. Then 20 years later, he rents Stanley Donen's "Charade," starring classy older gent Cary Grant, peppy young flirt Audrey Hepburn, and some thugs, including Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy, sporting a hook for a hand.

The grown-up kid feels a chill as Grant throws open a bathroom door and discovers Kennedy staring up absently from under the water.

Cut to the near-present, when he learns a remake is in the works called "The Truth About Charlie." He's not thrilled at the casting – Thandie Newton and the generally bland Mark Wahlberg subbing for Hepburn and Grant – but it's written and directed by Jonathan Demme, so there's hope the director might craft a mix of the whimsy of his "Melvin and Howard" and the suspense of his "The Silence of the Lambs."

If you think this lead-in's been self-indulgent, wait till you see "The Truth About Charlie" (actually, don't see it; take our word and save yourself time and money better spent on another flick).

Demme's taken a movie he loves, copied the essential plot verbatim without a single new twist, then strung on baubles that degrade "Charade's" charming story to a turgid mess.

Newton is Regina, who returns from a holiday to find her hubby, Charlie, whom she was about to divorce, murdered. Regina's quickly beset by oddballs, all interested in a fortune Charlie may or may not have left in her keeping.

There's Joshua (Wahlberg), who seems to be a good Samaritan but whose shifting identities leave Regina in doubt; a shadowy U.S. official (Tim Robbins); three menacing toughs (Joong-Hoon Park, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Ted Levine); and a police detective (Christine Boisson) and her aide (Simon Abkarian).

Newton's fairly enchanting, at times channeling Hepburn's fusion of elegance and befuddlement. Predictably, Wahlberg's a bore, while Robbins seems to be attempting a Matthau impersonation while constipated.

Demme adds flourishes that amount to groveling at the altar of the French New Wave, noting in background materials for "The Truth About Charlie" that the Paris of "Charade" looks quaintly Old World considering that the film came out in 1963, when Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and others were redefining cinema.

So, Demme figures, wouldn't it be cool to spice up "Charade" with New Wave touches?

Much of "The Truth About Charlie" is shot in the hit-and-run style and edited with the hiccuping discontinuity pioneered by Godard. Big deal. Done to death in the cinematic naturalism of the last 40 years.

More annoying are Demme's inside jokes. He tosses in pointless roles for New Wave legends Charles Aznavour and Anna Karina and director Agnes Varda. In one sequence, Wahlberg meanders through Paris in an old-fashioned hat and jacket resembling the jaunty outfit of Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's "Breathless." And the image of Truffaut's gravestone in the closing credits is just bizarre.

The references will be lost on younger audiences unversed in the French New Wave. For everyone else, Demme's cutesy indulgences jumble up a blithely convoluted story with dull, needless distractions. 1 1/2 stars

One approaches The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Stanley Donen's 1963 classic Charade, with a lot less trepidation than remakes usually inspire. Yes, the original film -- an intoxicating mix of suspense and romance often described as the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made -- was close to perfection, as far as ffizzy pop entertainment goes. It also happened to star Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant at their glamorous prime -- the kind of screen couple that has no peer in Hollywood today.

Except that Charlie was directed by Jonathan Demme, who has demonstrated as much flair for the offbeat (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, Married To the Mob) as he has for the serious (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Beloved). Demme's name alone instills confidence, and sure enough, Charlie does not disappoint -- as long as you're not looking for a satisfying yarn.

Story seems to be the last thing that interested Demme this time: The premise remains the same: Regina (Thandie Newton), a young woman living in Paris, discovers her husband Charlie has been murdered -- and he was not who he claimed to be. What's worse, Charlie apparently stole a trunkload of cash that a lot of people are intent on recovering -- and they expect Regina to know its whereabouts.

This includes the Paris police, a U.S. government agent (Tim Robbins), a trio of thugs and seemingly everyone else who crosses Regina's path. The only person she can trust -- maybe -- is the suave, charming Joshua (Mark Wahlberg), an American tourist who keeps stumbling into her.

The screenplay for Charlie quickly takes leave from Peter Stone's original, tying itself into overly complicated knots of double- and triple-crossings that are entirely its own -- and not much fun. But Demme has directed the movie with the spirited energy of a little boy finally allowed onto the playground after a long school day. There is a light, carefree bounce to much of Charlie that makes the film a rollicking good time even after its plot has become a drag.

Paris brings out the stylish best in Demme: The movie is a swirl of color and sound and sensation. The City of Light has rarely looked so vibrant, so suffused with life and mystery and potential. The eclectic soundtrack, wallpapered with songs by Lhasa and Manu Chao and De Phazz, gives the film its funky, jazzy beat. When Wahlberg and Newton listen to a Charles Aznavour CD in their hotel room, Demme has the real-life singer pop up in the room along with them (and return for an encore during the closing credits). French New Wave icons Anna Karina and Agnes Varda show up in cameo roles, and the movie itself has the jumpy restlessness of a New Wave staple. Charlie is, above all else, Demme's love letter to all things French.

Against such a backdrop, it is easier to forgive that Charlie feels too long, or that Wahlberg seems miscast, unable to muster the magnetism his role requires (he's only effective when he's supposed to be menacing). Newton fares better, mostly because her natural charisma and delicate femininity are exactly what the movie requires. Their tentative romance -- the essential element in Charade -- never generates any sparks. No matter. Think of The Truth About Charlie as a Parisian getaway that happens to have a movie percolating in the background.

** ½ THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE

If any Hollywood star today represents the polar opposite of Grant’s relentless charm and savoir-faire, it’s Mr. Wahlberg and that utterly blank mug he brings to every role. The 
former Marky Mark’s breakout performance as a porn star in “Boogie Nights” required him to use maybe two of his three facial expressions, and he did so admirably. Trouble is, we all mistook it for acting.

I’m somewhat skeptical of remakes — and many of late, like last year’s “Planet of the Apes, which also starred Mr. Wahlberg, have turned out to be pointless — but I’m not necessarily opposed to them. But actors are expected to make a role their own rather than simply imitate a predecessor. The casting mistake in “Charlie” is the underestimation of just how essential Cary Grant playing Cary Grant is to us buying the character of Peter Joshua. (The remake changes the name, for some reason, to Joshua Peters.)

The plot of this comedy-thriller is thin to begin with. After a vacation with her girlfriend in Martinique, Regina Lambert (Thandie Newton) comes home to find her art-dealer husband of three months dead and their huge Paris flat cleaned out. The police (well-played by Christine Boisson and Simon Abkarian) haven’t a clue about the murderer, and strange people start to contact our distressed damsel.

Some, like Joshua, whom she runs into first in Martinique and again in Paris, only seem interested in helping Regina through her loss. But others approach her with threats. A trio of menacing toughs — Joong-Hoon Park, Ted Levine and Lisa Gay Hamilton — informs Regina that her late husband stole money from them, and they insist that Regina knows where it is. A kindly American spy (Tim Robbins) tells Regina that her husband was indeed a thief, but that the money belongs to the U.S. government, which also wants it back.

If the original cast didn’t handle this material in an entirely tongue-in-cheek manner, it certainly leaned that way. Audrey Hepburn was Regina, and Walter Matthau was the U.S. spook. Two of the bad guys were played by a wiry James Coburn and a hook-handed George Kennedy. Like them, Ms. Newton strikes the proper balance. So does Mr. Robbins, who compensates for not having Mr. Matthau’s hilarious hangdog expression by employing an American accent that falls somewhere between Bean Town and The Big Easy. Unfortunately, many of the other cast members take things too seriously.

Mr. Demme also hurts the movie with gimmicky direction — restless camera work and odd-angle shots that serve no purpose other than self-aggrandizement. At times I forgot that this was the same filmmaker who gave us “Silence of the Lambs” and “Melvin and Howard,” so frequent were his annoying nods to the new crop of directors with backgrounds in music videos. Tak Fujimoto’s cinematography does Paris justice, and Catherine Leterrier’s costumes look very comfy, though men in berets seems a little over the top these days.

What sinks the movie in the end, however, is what kept the original afloat — old-fashioned chemistry between Peter and Regina. Grant would make just two more films after “Charade”; audiences turned out to see a known quantity deliver a performance he’d given too many times to count. Hepburn’s screen identity had already been established in “Sabrina,” “Roman Holiday,” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The public wasn’t looking for anything new from her, either. What “Charlie” lacks is a believable coupling to keep us caring. Ms. Newton is a Bacall with no Bogey.

In Jonathan Demme's The Truth About Charlie, an uneven but engaging remake of the 1963 romantic caper Charade, Wahlberg plays Grant to Thandi Newton's Audrey Hepburn in a money chase across the cobbled streets of Paris.

It's a pairing that proves one thing: The stolid Wahlberg is never going to be leading-man material, no matter how much his many admirers may desire it. He is a competent enough actor, but in matters of love he fizzles where he should sizzle. His reckless abandon in tracing the footsteps of better actors - he also did Charlton Heston in last year's dismal Planet Of The Apes remake - only serves to highlight his limitations. When the mood turns to amour, Mark turns to mush.

In fairness, no one could be expected to match Cary Grant for suaveness or sex appeal, even if Grant was at the end of his screen-idol career when he made Charade. Newton, on the other hand, easily overcomes comparisons to Audrey Hepburn, in the role of a woman being pursued for a cache of cash her late husband stole, and which thieves are convinced she now has. Managing to appear innocent yet not na•ve, Newton sidesteps the sexism which made Stanley Donen's Charade seem older than its years: She wants the man, yes, but he has to prove that he wants her, too.

Newton is the main reason to see The Truth About Charlie, but the person having the most fun is behind the camera. Director Demme (The Silence Of The Lambs) lets his francophilia run rampant, using the film as an excuse not only to remake a favourite film, but also to tip his beret to his beloved idols of France's New Wave movement of the early '60s. Demme and his favourite cinematographer Tak Fujimoto untether the camera, New Wave style, and follow their characters so closely, they sometimes seem to be performing facial surgery.

Demme also spices up the support cast with figures straight out of Eurofilm lore. Watch for such New Wave stalwarts as director Agnes Varda as the Widow Hyppolite, and acting icon Anna Karina as a cabaret singer named Karina, who manages to get all of the players to stop their pursuits long enough to dance the tango. There are also amusing cameos by French singing legend Charles Aznavour, who pops up both in person and on a screen showing Francois Truffaut's Shoot The Piano Player. Fans of Federico Fellini should keep their eyes peeled for Magali Noel, the sexy star of La Dolce Vita, Fellini Satyricon and Amarcord, who can be glimpsed as a mysterious woman in black.

The sense of fun is needed, as it was for the original Charade, for a story that combines a high body count with a small amount of plot. The basic set-up is the same as it was 39 years ago: A good-time Charlie (Stephen Dillane) comes to a untimely demise in an opening-act train journey, setting in motion a quest by numerous shady people to find out what he was up to, what he was hiding and how they can get their hands on it

Charlie's widow Regina (Newton) is shocked but not overly grieving, since she was planning to divorce her philandering hubby. When she returns from a solo Caribbean vacation to find her Paris apartment stripped bare, and brassy police Commandant Dominique (Christine Boisson) leading a murder investigation, she realizes there was more to Charlie's many travels than she'd ever suspected. She also quickly becomes aware that she's being pursued by a veritable rainbow coalition of thugs, a trio played by Korean film star Il-Sang Lee and Demme film regulars Emil Zatapec and Lola Jansco.

The thugs want $6 million they claim Charlie stole from them, which they had stolen from the U.S. government. Regina insists she doesn't have it, but even the supposed good guys don't believe that. A U.S. government operative named Mr. Bartholomew (a hammy Tim Robbins) tells Regina in a fatherly way that she must surely have the money squirreled away somewhere, and she'd better find it, pronto.

A dizzy Regina isn't sure of what to do, but she does have a guardian angel in the person of Joshua Peters (Wahlberg), a friendly American with a fondness for berets and fedoras. She met him on a beach in the Caribbean, where they flirted; now he's in Paris, where he keeps showing up in the nick of time to save her from various scrapes. But is he really interested in helping her, or helping himself to the $6 million?

Fans of Charade already know the answer, which in the original film wasn't that important. The joy was the delightful banter between Grant and Hepburn, as they slowly tried to decide whether desire or deceit was the greater impulse. The committee-written script for The Truth About Charlie tracks Peter Stone's original screenplay, but it perversely removes much of the humorous dialogue.

This most likely has everything to do with the fact that Wahlberg isn't up to the job of witty verbiage, and not just because he can't hold a candle to Grant. But Newton, continuing to show an impressive range already demonstrated by her work in John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 and Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged, manages to keep things lively all on her own. The real truth about this Charlie, come to think of it, is that it's the women you most want to keep an eye on, for all kinds of reasons - and right up to the very last credit roll. 

During the studio era, Hollywood directors boasted of the superiority of Paris, Paramount, to Paris, France, and who could argue with their moonstruck visions? Then along came the French New Wave, whose filmmakers hit the City of Light with lightweight cameras that danced down boulevards and through the Bois du Boulogne, reclaiming Paris for Parisians.

Now comes "The Truth About Charlie," Jonathan Demme's love letter from an American in Paris to Parisians who love American romantic thrillers. It's not a great film but it's pure pleasure, this way-cool remake of the super-suave thriller "Charade" starring Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg in roles originated by Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Here is a love story for movie lovers, one in which Demme opens his arms to old Hollywood, the New Wave, and lissome Newton for one breathless embrace.

The joke about "Charade" was that it was the best thriller that Hitchcock never made. The joke about "Charlie," in which everyone but the heroine pretends to be someone he or she is not, is that it wants to be the best mistaken-identity romance that Truffaut never considered. It sparkles like the Seine on a sunny day, and moves to the rhythms of a World Beat soundtrack.

Reggie Lambert (Newton) is a fragile beauty who returns home to Paris from a Martinique holiday to discover husband Charlie dead, apartment gutted, bank account drained. Nothing is left - except that cast-iron spine she didn't know she possessed.

Between cross-examinations by icy Commandant Dominique (Christine Boisson) and apparent double-crosses by flirty mystery man Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg), Reggie is getting a pretty good workout.

That's even before the arrival of the three stooges (played by Il-Sang Lee, Ted Levine and Lisa Gay Hamilton), colorfully sinister cohorts of Charlie's who assume Reggie knows more about her husband's shady dealings than she does.

Reggie's search to learn the truth about Charlie leads her down Paris' most picturesque cul-de-sacs, into its most indiscreet hotels (the Langlois, named for the legendary film preservationist, Henri), and on board the Ferris wheel erected to celebrate the millennium.

Among the many Paris landmarks celebrated in a movie that honors individuals as well as institutions are singer Charles Aznavour, New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda, and actress Anna Karina. They bring a living-legend quality to the film, but they also slow it down, making one wish this vehicle were customized with the accelerator used in "The Bourne Identity."

While on the Millennium Wheel consulting a grave State Department functionary named Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins), Reggie begins to feel she is going around in circles. So does the audience for this overlong film. But nobody can deny that the view is "magnifique" and Newton "charmante."

Jonathan Demme cast Thandie Newton in the Hepburn role in his remake of 'Charade.' 

Thandie Newton believed the whole process was casual and uncalculated. Newton has been invited to the home of director Jonathan Demme, to whom she had become close after playing the title role in his adaptation of "Beloved," for dinner and an old movie. Demme had chosen the 1963 Stanley Donen film "Charade," which Newton had never seen.

"I just loved it," says Newton of Donen's romantic comedy-thriller, which is quite obviously inspired by Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief." Set in Paris, "Charade" stars Audrey Hepburn, who is aided by a gallant stranger played by Cary Grant after the mysterious death of her husband leaves her entangled in mystery and mayhem.

"It was like this wonderful glass of champagne, and I just felt all bubbly after watching it,' says Newton in a lilting English accent. "And Jonathan said, 'You know what might be fun? We could remake this and you could play the lead!' He's such a lovely man, and his enthusiasm is so contagious, I remember saying, 'Oh, Jonathan, I don't know if I could do that, it's so not me.' And he said, 'Of course you could! It has you written all over it.'"

Which, in fact, it did, admits Demme.

"It wasn't technically a setup," says Demme of his "Charade" remake, titled "The Truth About Charlie." Demme, having directed 16 feature films of nearly every conceivable variety, not to mention numerous shorts, TV shows and music videos, can now, at age 58, safely be ranked among the greatest of living American filmmakers.

"But I had in fact watched 'Charade' for the first time in a long time shortly before that, and I thought it would be a great movie to remake in a contemporary setting. And I immediately thought of Thandie for the role of Reggie, mostly because she is a lot like Reggie, so I asked her over and afterward asked her to consider it, mostly on the basis that we would go to Paris and have a great deal of fun. Which we in fact finally did, although it took a long time to get there."

Demme's original idea was to cast Will Smith in the Cary Grant role, because he thought it would be interesting to pair Smith, with his reputation as a seat-of-the-pants performer, with Newton, who he says "so totally immerses herself in a part that when her character in 'Beloved' had to drool, that was Thandie's real drool. She would accept no synthetic substitute.

"So I hammered a script out with that dynamic in mind, and then 'Ali,' which was Will's dream project, was delayed, and he had to drop out."

Demme says it was someone at Universal Studios who suggested Mark Wahlberg for the role of Joshua, a stranger who befriends Reggie when she becomes a suspect in her husband's killing and when three men begin trailing her wherever she goes.

"I was skeptical (about Wahlberg) when his name came up," says Demme. "I had seen 'Boogie Nights' and thought he was terrific in that, but I wondered if he wasn't just playing someone a lot like himself. So I called P.T. Anderson (who directed "Boogie Nights"), and he reassured me Mark was a consummate pro and could do whatever we needed. So Mark and Thandie and I met, and they just talked and got to know each other, and I thought, 'Yeah, I like this pairing a lot. I just went with my gut, I guess.' "

"I trust Jonathan implicitly when it comes to casting, and not just because he chose me for a role (in "Beloved") that a lot of better-known actresses wanted," says Newton, laughing.

"Think about it: Tom Hanks in 'Philadelphia' or Michelle Pfeiffer in 'Married to the Mob,' or even Anthony Hopkins in 'The Silence of the Lambs.' Today, you can't imagine anyone else in those roles, but when Jonathan made them, they seemed like odd selections. So I was inclined to believe Mark was the right guy, though you wouldn't normally think of him to play this debonair gent in a fedora. Besides, it's a very mercurial character, in that you never know what his true intentions are."

Newton says she didn't spend a lot of time with Wahlberg off the set and always felt slightly "off-kilter when I was around him, which I think ended up helping the film, because Reggie never really knows what to think about this guy, except that he's charming. But I can honestly say that I know no more about Mark Wahlberg today than I did when I started making the film."

Demme says one of the hardest phone calls he ever made was to Stanley Donen, who broke into films as a choreographer in 1943 and directed his last film, a TV production of the play "Love Letters," in 1999. In between, he made many of the most beloved movie musicals of all time, including "On the Town," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Singin' in the Rain," which he co-directed with Gene Kelly.

"I was stuttering, almost," Demme recalls. "'Uh, Mr. Donen, I'm a great admirer of yours and I want to remake one of your greatest movies, 'Charade.' He was wonderfully gracious about it, especially considering I was making some pretty substantial changes."

Though Demme always planned to set "The Truth About Charlie" in Paris, it was a very different Paris from the Eiffel Tower elegance of "Charade."

"I still wanted to emphasize the romance of the city, but in a slightly more dangerous and far more diverse fashion. All these different cultures, including Arabic and African and Asian, come together there in a really beautiful, exotic way. Also, I had this idea of paying tribute to the French New Wave (filmmaking movement), which was just beginning to blossom when Stanley was there making this very American movie there in the early '60s."

Before he began writing and directing drive-in movies for legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman, Demme had a job as a publicist for United Artists. He was given the job of looking after Francois Truffaut when the French director came to the United States in 1968 for the premiere of his film "The Bride Wore Black."

"By the end of his visit he had warmed to me, I think," says Demme of the notoriously irritable Truffaut. "But I remember thinking I was in the presence of someone who changed the rules of filmmaking, and meeting him was an enormous influence on me and my future endeavors. So when I began planning 'Charlie,' I wanted to acknowledge my debt to him and the rest of the New Wavers."

Film buffs will delight in seeing that debt repaid in ways both amusing and touching. In one unforgettable scene, Charles Aznavour, the great boulevardier and star of Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player," appears on a balcony to serenade Reggie and Joshua, while Anna Karina, star of Jean-Luc Godard's greatest films, shows up as a nightclub chanteuse. Agnes Varda, a fine director in her own right and the wife of the late "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" director Jacques Demy, is cast in a crucial role as the late Charlie's mother. And the film concludes with a lingering shot of the grave of Truffaut, to whom — along with Demme's nephew Ted, a producer and director who died earlier this year — the film is dedicated.

"Jonathan is just one of the sweetest, most thoughtful men I've ever met," says Newton, "and he just happens to be a great director. I had a lot of apprehension about doing this movie, because I knew I would be compared to Audrey Hepburn, but Jonathan assured me that, once we started making the movie, I would become Reggie and that I would never think about it again.

"He was right. He made me feel so confident, because I knew he would always be there to support me and help me. You can trust him. That's the truth about Jonathan."