Seeing any great actor or director fall from grace in such a way that questions their entire artistic integrity is never a particularly entertaining experience, especially when they are making something that seems to have good intentions. In the case of Blame It on Rio, we have an example of both an actor (Michael Caine) and filmmaker (Stanley Donen) achieving one of the lowest points in their careers, in a film that is not only far from their best work or worthy of their respective talents, but also somewhat sinister. The film in question is Blame It on Rio, which is a film that seemingly exists to bank on the growing body of sexually-charged cinema that combines humour and eroticism, which is a byproduct of more lax views on what can be shown on screen, as well as the slight relaxing of the censorship that had previously dominated Hollywood for over half a century by this point. Based on the film Un moment d’égarement, the film tells the story of a pair of middle-aged men, both speeding towards divorce from their respective wives, spending some time in the idyllic landscape of Rio de Janeiro, where they hope to engage in some well-earned rest, as well as a meaningless affair or two to help distract them from the harsh reality that is their everyday life – that is until one of the falls in love with the other’s daughter and begins a torrid love affair with someone who is more than half his age, but who seems to be more than willing to surrender herself to his bizarre charms. It is not a particularly good film in any way, and even if my experience with it is a lot more lenient than others who have voyaged into the world of this film, Blame It on Rio is still an endurance test, an unfunny bundle of dull ideas that never amount to anything, and which skirt around controversy in ways that seem intentional but never seem to have any real purpose, all of which goes into the composition of quite an unfortunate excuse for a film that never amounts to anything even vaguely valuable.

It seems like Blame It on Rio is built on the simple premise of that hackneyed expression “No sex, we’re British”, which has been the foundation for some outrageously funny commentary on the notoriously stuffy perceptions of the British people about the more libertine nature of the outside world. Unfortunately, this film fumbles every bit of potential that came with the source material, crafting a bitter and caustic dark comedy that is not nearly as funny as it believes itself to be, which is the root of nearly everything that we find troubling about this film as a whole. There isn’t much merit in how the film captures the idea of an overly straight-laced businessman getting seduced by a randy teenager who simply cannot resist him, and it seems like logic was never a factor in the creation of this film, which often becomes quite despicable in how it portrays the central relationship. A sex-based comedy is not inherently lowbrow, but it becomes quite an ordeal if it doesn’t have some semblance of intelligence, and Blame It on Rio seems to be constructing itself on being some kind of insightful and funny satire, but without any kind of rational thought behind any of the choices the characters make, nor anything close to a reason for their behaviour, which is primarily where the film starts to fall apart because this is quite simply not something that warranted too much of our attention, especially when it comes to unpacking the central themes. Having not seen the Berri film (which is oddly quite elusive, which may suggest it isn’t much better), the very idea of this narrative being told without any real consequence to the characters is already questionable – even if we remove the moralistic aspect, there seems to be very little rhyme or reason behind this story, and the fact that we have a film in which these characters undergo very little development is a clear indication of a poorly-made film that doesn’t have anything interesting to say about its already polarizing material.

It is quite a shock when we realize that Blame It on Rio was directed by the same filmmaker who worked on classics like Singin’ in the Rain and Two for the Road, both landmark films that defined not only his career but Hollywood at a very specific time in its history. It isn’t clear what drove Donen, by all accounts a decent and morally sound filmmaker, to become involved in a film as sordid as this, not only on a moralistic level but on an artistic one as well. He was known to push boundaries, but in ways that made sense and added something to the conversation, rather than being bewildering just for the sake of the narrative, or simply to shock audiences that may not expect such risque material from the director. It often feels as if Donen was trying to show himself to be a more mature director than the one who worked under the strict confines of the studio system – but a full-blown sex comedy that not only exists in poor taste but makes no effort to expand on the few good ideas it had, feels like something of a betrayal. This narrative was already done well when Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita, which is still a profoundly controversial text, but one that at least has some artistic merit. Courting controversy intentionally is not an easy task, especially not when all of the ideas aren’t set out far enough to understand their implications – while it may seem like this is a more prudish, restrictive way of talking about art, there is something deeply unsettling about how freely Donen and his cohorts are willing to weaponize sexuality, especially the kind that openly navigates around the subject of the age of consent – the love interest of the main character is a girl that has barely just turned 18, but yet the film has very little issue with portraying their relationship in vivid detail. It’s profoundly uncomfortable, and while this kind of feeling of disconcerting dread may be useful in terms of social commentary, this film is simply not smart enough to be nearly as insightful as that, so we can ultimately rule that Blame It on Rio is not satirizing the perverse old men who engage in sordid activities with much younger people but often feels like it isn’t only excusing it, but outright celebrating it in some ways, which is not a particularly endearing quality, regardless of how you look at it.

You would at least assume that Michael Caine would lend the narrative some gravitas – this was at the time in his career when he would turn nearly anything into a film worth watching since he had moved past his days of being a dashing young leading man, but in the process earned a respectability that was the foundation for many terrific projects that saw him stretch his skills far and wide. Unfortunately, Blame It on Rio contains one of his worst performances – and it isn’t even that Caine is necessarily bad in the film, but rather that he barely registers. Everything that we adore about him as an actor, whether it be his distinctive swagger or penchant for intellectual but hilarious wise cracks, or his unquestionable screen presence, is missing, with the character of Matthew Hollis being the very definition of pathetic. Hollis is not an interesting character, and his only purpose is to serve as a reactionary to the mounds of chaos that we find scattered throughout the film. Caine navigates this film like a deer in headlights, working laboriously to find some meaning in a film that is entirely immune to any kind of complexity, which makes for quite an uncomfortable experience, since the actor himself seems to be reflecting our confusion and disdain for this material, which is neither funny nor worthy of his talents, and thus a career low for an actor who could elevate even the worst material. The rest of the performances are not much better – Vincent Bologna tries his best, but he is ultimately too one-dimensional, while Michelle Johnson and Demi Moore are cast as objects of desire, the former in particular truly having the poor luck of playing someone defined entirely by her appearance, rather than having any degree of complexity lurking beneath the surface. Blame It on Rio wastes a competent cast, all because it was trying to draw attention to its animalistic sexuality, which was entirely unnecessary and quite wasteful of the time of these actors, who deserved so much better than this botched comedy.

By the time the film ends (which feels far longer than its 98 minutes would lead you to believe – this is a badly-paced film that feels twice as long as it is), we come to the realization that Blame It on Rio just wants to scandalize for the sake of stirring a reaction from the viewer, which may be entertaining at first, but is essentially pandering to a profoundly unintelligent and deeply troublesome portion of the population, the kind that gets perverse pleasure from seeing concupiscent old men chasing after girls quite literally young enough to be their daughters, which is worrying in itself, so the fact that this hails from someone with as impressive a career as Donen, rather than a filmmaker that peddled in this kind of cheap entertainment, is doubly disappointing. The fact remains that there is no logical reason for this film to have even been made since it contributes nothing intriguing, and forces its talented actors into playing awful roles that are not nearly as interesting as they appear on the surface. Ultimately, we come to the realization that Blame It on Rio is a vapid comedy that says and does absolutely nothing of value, adding very little to the conversation outside of being a whistle-stop tour of all the aspects that should be avoided when making such a film. It goes beyond being vulgar and becomes an exercise in perversion and poor taste, and not the kind that has any value in terms of counterculture discourse or subverting conservative values – it is a film about a gross intergenerational relationship that doesn’t add any nuance to whatever slight bit of potential there was to fashion a good film out of this already questionable material. This isn’t to preach some kind of puritanical values that cinema has to follow – but if you are going to make a sex comedy, you can either make it smart or funny – and unfortunately, Blame It on Rio is quite decisively neither.