'Interview' is intimate, delicious

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Pierre and Katya really don't hit it off when they meet.

Pierre (Steve Buscemi, who also co-wrote and directed) is a political journalist galled that he's missing a big story in Washington because his editor sent him to New York to do a puff piece on a starlet.

His simmering resentment boils over when said starlet is an hour late for their interview. (Which proves he really hasn't done this before — believe me, it happens all the time.)

When Katya (Sienna Miller) finally arrives at the restaurant, she can tell Pierre's not happy. She can also tell that he knows almost nothing about her and hasn't seen a single one of her films.

"I know you by your reputation," he insists.

You mean, she asks incredulously, whom I'm sleeping with?

Things go downhill from there. It's one of the most delicious opening scenes of the year.

Thankfully, Katya and Pierre are thrown together again minutes later when the taxi driving Pierre crashes — its driver couldn't help but stare at the leggy blonde. She kindly takes Pierre back to her nearby loft to recover from a nosebleed. And the stage is set for a sex-and-power-charged game of cat and mouse in which you can't quite tell who's the cat and who's the mouse until the very end.

"Interview" is a remake of a 2003 movie by Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker slain by an Islamic extremist, but one of its themes — the shallowness of celebrity culture — feels very American.

"I've gotta write something," Pierre moans, begging Katya to resume the interview.