Grand Tour is a 2024 historical drama film co-written and directed by Miguel Gomes, starring and Crista Alfaiate. Gomes has stated the movie was inspired by a passage from the W. Somerset Maugham book The Gentleman in the Parlour.
The film had its world premiere at the main competition of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, on 22 May 2024, where Gomes won the Best Director award. In September 2024, it was selected as the Portuguese entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, but was not nominated. It was theatrically released in Portugal on 19 September 2024, by Um Pedra no Sapato.
Plot In 1918, Rangoon is a city under British colonial rule. Civil servant Edward abandons his fiancée Molly on the day they are to be married. He flees in a state of melancholy, contemplating Molly's condition. Determined to be married, Molly follows his trail.
Cast as Edward Crista Alfaiate as Molly Cláudio da Silva as Timothy Sanders Lang Khê Tran as Ngoc Jorge Andrade as Reginald João Pedro Vaz as Reverendo Carpenter João Pedro Bénard as Horace Seagrave Teresa Madruga as Espia Joana Bárcia as Lady Dragon Jani Zhao as Noiva Chinesa Manuela Couto as Mrs. Cooper Diogo Dória as Major Brown Américo Silva as Comandante Britanico Giacomo Leone as Signor Farnese
Production Grand Tour was produced by the Lisbon-based company Uma Pedra No Sapato, in co-production with Italy's Vivo Film and France's Shellac Sud and Cinéma Defacto. In March 2023, Variety reported that the film was shooting in Italy. It also revealed that the film would combine 16 mm film scenes with the images and sounds captured during a research trip to Asia. Gomes sent two cinematographers to capture footage: Guo Liang in China and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom in six other countries. Filming was done with an Arriflex 416 camera using Kodak 7222 film stock. Adobe Premiere Pro was used to edit the film and da Vinci 2K was used for colour correction. While most of the film is in black and white, the film shifts between time periods, blending black-and-white and color footage in the process. Narrative scenes, which remain in black-and-white, were shot on soundstages in Lisbon and Rome. They are interspersed with documentary-style footage of modern-day cities, often in color but also in monochrome.
Release Grand Tour was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 22 May 2024. It was also selected for the main competition of the 71st Sydney Film Festival and was screened on 15 June 2024. It was also selected in Gala Presentation at the 29th Busan International Film Festival to be screened in October 2024. It made its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2024, screened in the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival. It also was selected in the slate of the 69th Valladolid International Film Festival (for its Spanish premiere).
International sales were handled by The Match Factory. Uma Pedra no Sapato theatrically released the film in Portugal on 19 September 2024. The film was originally set to be released theatrically in France by Tandem and Shellac on 18 December 2024, but the release date was pushed forward to 6 November 2024, and then pushed back to 27 November 2024. In June 2024, Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film in North America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, Germany, Austria, Turkey and India. The film is set to be released in theaters in the US on 28 March 2025.
Reception
Critical response Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Writing for Variety at Cannes, Jessica Kiang called the film "an enchanting, enlivening, era-spanning, continent-crossing travelogue that runs the very serious risk of infecting you with the antidote: a potent dose of wanderlust-for-life." Jordan Mintzer in The Hollywood Reporter noted that while fans of Gomes' prior work will enjoy the film, "anyone looking for a good story, or characters to get hooked on, may find themselves admiring the scenery without ever relishing it." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film four stars and wrote "once again, Portuguese auteur Miguel Gomes delivers a film in which the most complex sophistication coexists with innocence and charm."
Accolades Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Cannes Film Festival 25 May 2024 Palme d'Or Miguel Gomes Best Director Chicago International Film Festival 27 October 2024 Gold Hugo Grand Tour Silver Hugo – Best Director Miguel Gomes Silver Hugo – Best Editing Telmo Churro and Pedro Filipe Marques Lumière Awards 20 January 2025 Best International Co-Production Grand Tour Platino Awards 27 April 2025 Best Ibero-American Film Sur Awards Best Ibero-American Film Sydney Film Festival 16 June 2024 Best Film Valladolid International Film Festival 26 October 2024 Golden Spike 'José Salcedo' Award for Best Editing Telmo Churro, Pedro Filipe Marques
See also List of submissions to the 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film List of Portuguese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
References
Works cited
External links