Original Sin

Original Sin is a romantic thriller set in late nineteenth-century Cuba. Luis Antonio Vargas, a wealthy coffee merchant, places a newspaper advertisement seeking an American bride, hoping the match will secure his social standing. Julia Russell answers, and when she arrives she proves far more striking than he had pictured. The two marry, but the life he imagined quickly unravels: Julia is not the modest woman he expected, and she soon disappears with his money. Luis sets out to find her, and the search draws him into the tangled past of the woman he thought he knew, where deceit and mistaken identity shape everything.

Michael Cristofer directed and wrote the screenplay, his third feature after Gia and Body Shots. Angelina Jolie plays Julia, with Antonio Banderas as Luis; Thomas Jane, Gregory Itzin, Jack Thompson and Allison Mackie appear in supporting roles. The film is a co-production across the United Kingdom, Mexico, the United States, France and Switzerland, made for a budget of 42 million dollars.

It was released in May 2001 and took about 35 million dollars worldwide, less than its cost. Audience response has been moderate, with a rating of 6 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 63,000 votes and 6.1 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 3.9 out of 10 from 91 reviews places it well below those audience scores.