Review: 🎬 Sabrina (1995)

A Modern Fairytale with Old World Charm

 4 out of 5

There is a certain kind of movie that Hollywood rarely makes anymore, romantic, elegant, and unafraid of sentiment. Sydney Pollack’s Sabrina is a remake, yes, but it’s also a reaffirmation. It reminds us that stories about love, transformation, and the quiet unraveling of emotional armor still have a place in cinema, even in an age of cynicism.

Harrison Ford, often the embodiment of rugged charm or action-hero bravado, turns inward in Sabrina. His portrayal of Linus Larrabee is a masterclass in restraint. Linus is a cold, calculating executive, a man whose life is measured in quarterly earnings and strategic mergers. Ford doesn’t soften him with easy likability; instead, he lets Linus thaw slowly, like winter giving way to spring. It’s a performance that understands the power of silence, of glances, of moments withheld. And when Linus finally allows himself to feel, it’s not a grand gesture, it’s a quiet surrender.

Greg Kinnear, as the younger Larrabee brother David, is all surface charm and playboy ease, but Kinnear imbues the role with surprising depth. There are undertones of longing, of a man who has never quite figured out what he wants beyond the next thrill. His David is not just a foil to Linus; he’s a mirror, reflecting what Linus might have been if he’d chosen a different path. Kinnear’s performance is deceptively light, but it lingers.

And then there is Julia Ormond, stepping into the shoes once worn by Audrey Hepburn. Her Sabrina is not a carbon copy; she is her own creation. Ormond captures the wide-eyed innocence of youth, but also the aching desire to be seen, to be more than the chauffeur’s daughter. Her transformation from awkward dreamer to poised woman is not just physical. It’s emotional, spiritual. It’s a coming-of-age arc that embraces vulnerability rather than discarding it. Ormond doesn’t play Sabrina as someone who becomes worldly; she plays her as someone who becomes whole.

The story unfolds with a grace that never feels forced. Pollack’s direction is patient, allowing the characters to breathe, to evolve. The film doesn’t rush toward its conclusion; it arrives there naturally, like a well-told tale. The settings, Paris, Long Island, boardrooms and ballrooms are rendered with a painter’s eye, but they never overshadow the emotional core.

Sabrina is not just a romance. It’s a meditation on change, on the courage it takes to step outside the life you’ve always known. It’s about the quiet revolutions that happen inside us when we dare to love. And in the hands of Ford, Kinnear, and Ormond, it becomes something rare: a remake that honors its predecessor while carving out its own identity.