Month: October 2008

Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)

Halloween is a technical masterpiece. It’s absolutely spectacular to watch. Carpenter’s composition is fantastic, but Dean Cundey’s cinematography and the editing–from Tommy Lee Wallace and Charles Bornstein–creates this uneasy, surreal experience. The way Carpenter uses the wind in the film is probably my favorite, since he establishes it early on and keeps it going until the very end. It’s transfixing.

There are some great performances–Jamie Lee Curtis’s character arc is spectacular, Nancy Kyes is excellent. Donald Pleasence is solid and the film’s too good for P.J. Soles and (surprisingly) Charles Cyphers to damage it. Soles is just annoying, but Cyphers just can’t deliver his lines with the gravity Pleasence can–most of their scenes are together–and Cyphers comes off poorly because of it.

If it seems like I’m listing all the positives about Halloween, I am.

I first watched Halloween when I was eleven or twelve and wasn’t at all impressed (first, I was eleven or twelve and, second, I was watching a pan and scan VHS). In fact, I liked the second one more at the time (strangely, the same thing happened–around that time–with Jaws). A few years later, after I’d started to discover Carpenter’s other work, I went back to Halloween and came to appreciate it much like I did on this viewing. It’s a technical marvel.

But it’s got a weak plot.

The script’s strong–Debra Hill writes the female characters extremely well–watching Curtis at the end, it’s hard to think of any Hollywood film with such a strong female character until Aliens. Carpenter shoots every scene perfectly, but there’s something off.

Halloween, intended as a one-time picture, became the first horror franchise. Watching the film, even if one knows Carpenter didn’t intend it, he enabled that franchise. As the film progresses–it’s a perfectly paced ninety minutes–it becomes clearer and clearer the strongest point is Curtis and her reactions. Had the film centered on her experience, never making the bogeyman real until the end, it would have been a far superior film. It would have run only forty-two minutes, but it would be amazing.

The problem is how Carpenter shoots it. He relies entirely on his score to create fear in the viewer and it doesn’t work. The score’s effective and the theme’s good, but it doesn’t compliment the foreboding scenes. These scenes, with Carpenter shooting them matter-of-factly, are somewhat too well-made to be scary. They’re too visually beautiful. Carpenter lets his talent for composition get in the way of the story’s need to creep out the viewer.

He never even gets around to the weight of the film’s content. When characters die on screen, Carpenter doesn’t pause to give the viewer time to reflect. It’s an intentional move, but it’s a wrong one. The lack of emotional connection at that moment removes the viewer from the film and makes the artifice of the experience apparent.

Every time I start Halloween, just before it starts, I think it’s going to be better than I remember it. Every time, it’s about the same. For all the film’s successes, there’s a misguided creative impulse in the mix as well–and those successes can’t overpower it.

Baby It’s You (1983, John Sayles)

Baby It’s You is a John Sayles film I never expected to see… it’s John Sayles for hire. Sayles has had a lucrative career as a ghostwriter of blockbusters (Apollo 13 famously had his name on one poster… but not after the WGA got done). But Baby It’s You is the first of his films as a director I’ve encountered where Sayles struggled to find something to amuse himself. This film’s producer and credited story writer, Amy Robinson, shares a lot with the protagonist played by Rosanna Arquette and the film feels an awfully lot like an “inspired by a true story.” Sayles does well with that genre, except Baby It’s You isn’t just subpar for Sayles… it’s a thoughtfully produced television movie.

With Sayles’s direction–he doesn’t really get going until the third act in a lot of ways, his earlier moments of accomplishment are just his knowledge of making a film work on a small budget. How do you show you’re in a busy schoolyard without a big budget? Sound. The first three-quarters of the film is Sayles using his filmmaking skills to make the 1967 setting work flawlessly. In the end, he finally gets some moments of actual human interaction, instead of superficial movie ones, and–even with Arquette–it works.

Baby It’s You starts with Sayles’s name and some anachronistic use of Bruce Springsteen (for Vincent Spano’s big scenes, which is an artistically interesting move but distracting and unsuccessful). It feels like it might be Sayles, but then it gradually becomes clear it is not. Sayles knows what to do with Arquette’s character and the moments with her group of friends in high school reveal where the film could have gone… but with Spano, Sayles is lost.

The film concerns Arquette’s relationship with high school oddball (not quite thug, not quite not) Spano as she leaves working class New Jersey for Sarah Lawrence. The acting is a big problem, but not the film’s biggest. Sayles really doesn’t know what to do with Spano… maybe because the character remains opaque to the viewer until the third act, but maybe because the story just isn’t interesting. I lost count of how many times I wondered why these characters’ experiences were worth my hundred minutes. Not a concern I tend to have with Sayles, who can take it from one end of the spectrum to the other. Baby It’s You doesn’t really participate in that spectrum. It’s in a whole different one–the one where Rosanna Arquette shows up in a movie.

Matthew Modine has a small role in Baby It’s You. At this point in Modine’s career, he was a young Hollywood actor on his way up (he got washed away by the Brat Pack). It’s a John Sayles movie with Hollywood politicking. Sayles doesn’t do well with it.

Actually, Modine’s good, probably giving the second best performance–Tracy Pollan’s quite good as one of Arquette’s college classmates. Bill Raymond’s also good in a small role.

Spano isn’t terrible, but he’s visibly out of his depth. Sayles’s script asks him for the impossible–the character’s just too vague. Arquette either gets a little better at the end or she’d just killed enough of my brain cells I didn’t care anymore.

I’ve been wanting to see Baby It’s You for about twelve years.

I could have waited.

Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Mizoguchi Kenji)

Sansho the Bailiff is one of cinema’s most depressing pieces. I don’t think, after about twenty minutes into the film, there’s a single positive moment. Good things happen–occasionally–but they only lead to bad things (or the revelation of bad things).

The film opens with an epigraph, establishing the time period and some basics. It also implies Sansho is a folk tale and it does follow many of the traditions of (Western) fairy tale. The family of a royal–I’m paraphrasing and summarizing and Westernizing to fit that fairy tale comparison–are forced into slavery, only to have the son escape, rise to the proper position and return to save his family. Thanks to Walt Disney, there’s always room for a little fact-free hopefulness and it helps with Sansho. There are long periods of time without anything positive going on where the fairy tale comparison can keep one’s spirits afloat.

There are other downbeat films, ones even more relentlessly so. Where Sansho is different is in the setting. It’s the most affecting film about slavery I’ve ever seen. But the lack of any positive forces at work–one character even talks about the cruelness of the world and can only offer a monk’s solitude as a suggestion for reprieve–makes the viewing experience singularly rending.

I didn’t know anything about Sansho going in–I thought it was a samurai movie, actually, and Sansho would be the main character (I wondered why he came so late in the opening titles)–which might have amplified the experience for me. Mizoguchi fills the film with beautiful shots, with Miyagawa Kazuo’s outdoor cinematography some of the most exquisite I’ve ever seen, but they’re usually in contrast to the story. Only at the beginning, as the characters walk through a field of tall flowers, does Mizoguchi really let any physical beauty influence the characters. The rest of the film, no one really has any time to appreciate it. In lesser hands, it’d be cynical, but Mizoguchi instead creates an invisible barrier. By the time–following a long introduction sequence at the slave manor–he returns to beautiful scenery, he’s got the viewer so despondent, it’s going to take a lot more than some pretty trees to get him or her vivified.

Technically speaking, the film’s perfect. Mizoguchi fills his frame–and Miyagawa maintains such precise focus–the film feels like it has to be widescreen (it isn’t). The exterior shots don’t just cause this sensation, it’s also the interiors. The way characters talk to each other, move around each other, it’s as though they’re subject to Mizoguchi’s barriers as well. All of them–good and bad–are blissfully ignorant in some way or another. Even the titular Sansho, as villainous as he is, is rendered somewhat absurd as he cows to (much younger) superior.

The acting is all excellent, with Kagawa Kyôko the standout. Hanayagi Yoshiaki, the eventual lead (the son), has some problems starting out, but he eventually comes around–or it’s just the natural progression of the character.

It’s an awkward film to recommend–I imagine seeing it in a theater, with its bleakness julienning the communal film-going experience is a rare experience–but it really is a singular motion picture. I’ve just been writing about it for five hundred or so words and I can’t quite believe I was able to verbalize any part of my response to the film.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Mizoguchi Kenji; screenplay by Yahiro Fuji and Yoda Yoshikata, based on the story by Mori Ogai; director of photography, Miyagawa Kazuo; edited by Miyata Mitsuzô; music by Hayasaka Fumio, Mochizuki Tamekichi and Odera Kanahichi; production designers, Ito Kisaku and Nakajima Shozaburo; produced by Nagata Masaichi; released by Kadokawa Herald Pictures.

Starring Tanaka Kinuyo (Tamaki), Hanayagi Yoshiaki (Zushiô), Kagawa Kyôko (Anju), Shindô Eitarô (Sanshô), Kôno Akitake (Taro), Shimizu Masao (Masauji Taira), Mitsuda Ken (Prime Minister Fujiwara), Okuni Kazukimi (Norimura), Kosono Yôko (Kohagi), Tachibana Noriko (Namiji), Sugai Ichirô (Minister of Justice), Omi Teruko (Nakagimi), Kato Masahiko (Young Zushiô) and Enami Keiko (Young Anju).

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The Mississippi Gambler (1953, Rudolph Maté)

Torpid isn’t an adjective I get to use often, but I can’t think of a better one to describe The Mississippi Gambler. It’s a boring melodrama, trading entirely on the charisma of its cast–Tyrone Power might have been able to handle the weight, but the film concentrates on the loveless marriage of Piper Laurie (as she pines for Power) just when it needs him most. There are some fine moments throughout, particularly at the beginning, with Power and John McIntire working well together and the relationship between Power and Paul Cavanagh rather touching. But the story skips ahead way too often, passing over indeterminate months, until all the dramatic import is lost.

Bad acting from principle supporting cast members doesn’t help. John Baer’s particularly terrible, but Ron Randall isn’t much better. Most of their scenes are with Laurie and her performance is strong enough it’s inconceivable she’d be so devoted to such a pair of rubes. Some of the problem is with the script–Power, McIntire and Cavanagh are positioned as real men, while everyone else is a fop or dandy. It’s a goofy approach and somewhat nonsensical (there’s a lot of strong homoerotic undercurrents between Baer and Randall–and Baer’s devotion to sister Laurie is positively disturbing).

While Rudolph Maté’s direction isn’t bad, it’s certainly middling. The film’s got rather opulent sets and Maté shoots them to good effect, but that compliment’s probably the best one I can come up with. He’s got some strange composition–lots of backs of heads–and the film’s inability to convey any passage of time is partially his fault. Even if he didn’t choose to use fades to black or didn’t insist the script fit together, in terms of consecutive visual action, he still could have done something. It’s kind of his job, right?

Still, as boring as the film gets–as bad as Frank Skinner’s music gets and it gets bad–The Mississippi Gambler is never downright terrible. Power can do this kind of thing in his sleep; some of his performance here is certainly semi-conscious. McIntire and Cavanagh both make the most of their scenes. Julie Adams is fine in one of the script’s more useless, melodrama only roles.

It’s actually a perfect example of a melodrama. Nothing in the film doesn’t exist solely to advance the plot to its preordained conclusion. In the third act, as the pieces fall into place for the inevitable to occur, the film decides to take forever to get there, which gets really irritating.

I suppose Irving Glassberg’s Technicolor cinematography is pretty enough. I already complimented the sets too… The Mississippi Gambler is simply an excruciating ninety-nine minutes. Seton I. Miller seems to have written as many scenes as possible–I should have counted–with the idea enough of them would make a full narrative. Unsurprisingly, his experiment fails. He’s not even a bad writer–some of his dialogue and humor works and he has a handful of solid character relationships–he’s just a terrible plotter. What should have been surefire–Power as a charming gambler–is instead a big snooze.

But it’s still somehow competent.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Rudolph Maté; written by Seton I. Miller; director of photography, Irving Glassberg; edited by Edward Curtiss; music by Frank Skinner; produced by Ted Richmond; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Tyrone Power (Mark Fallon), Piper Laurie (Angelique Dureau), Julie Adams (Ann Conant), John McIntire (Kansas John Polly), Paul Cavanagh (Edmond Dureau), John Baer (Laurent Dureau), Ron Randell (George Elwood), Ralph Dumke (F. Montague Caldwell), Robert Warwick (Gov. Paul Monet), William Reynolds (Pierre Loyette) and Guy Williams (Andre Brion).

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Lions for Lambs (2007, Robert Redford)

Hopefully, Lions for Lambs will be the most topical film ever made. Hopefully. In fifteen years, hopefully it won’t make any sense. It probably will.

As a dramatic narrative, it’s pretty limp. Most of the scenes with the big three are dialogue scenes, written by someone not incompetent but without much gift for it. It’s a play from a non-playwright. As a singularly directed play, the film would make sense. As a film, it really doesn’t. It might be Redford’s direction, which suffers from bad editing (Joe Hutshing does a terrible job with the back and forth, each edit more jarring than the last), but it might also be the lack of distinction. Had Redford done something crazy–something von Trier crazy–it might have worked. Because there’s nothing to Lions for Lambs if one tells it straight. It’s three stories–professor Redford talking to a student (basically about not sitting idly by while Britney Spears passes for news), GOP senator Tom Cruise trying to sell a new Afghanistan strategy to a cable news exec–sorry, reporter–Meryl Streep, and that strategy failing two of Redford’s former students, Michael Peña and Derek Luke on the ground.

The film opens with a broad, forceful propagandist hammer. It’s the kind of thing they should have gotten Noam Chomsky to consult on… if Noam Chomsky consulted on movies and if the producers had an iota of forethought. It slowly and carefully reveals layers and inconsistencies… Army Lieutenant Colonel Peter Berg might believe calculated lies about Iran but he does care about his troops. Berg’s acting in the film, watching Peña and Luke under fire is fantastic–a performance I never thought he’d be capable of performing.

There is a lot of good acting in the film. Streep’s solid, of course. Cruise’s performance will probably go forever unnoticed, but it’s phenomenal. It should have gotten more notice–and would have if only the film had some better direction. Both Peña and Luke are good as well, with Peña turning in yet another of his character performance as lead auditions.

Redford’s pretty lame, but most of the problem is with his “acting” collaborator. Whoever casted Andrew Garfield committed almost as great a film crime as whoever kept Mark Isham’s lousy score. Garfield’s real, real, real bad. His dialogue’s bad too, but his delivery is incompetent. He couldn’t sell teen hair products.

The cast is small, there are only a handful of settings… it should have been a play. A play can be topical and still be a phenomenon. A film has to account for some of the time spent–the time spent making it, the time spent watching it. Lions for Lambs feels like screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan got pissed while watching some bullshit CNN newscast, wrote an easy ninety-minute movie (turning Peña and Luke’s story into an entire feature would have been work) and just happened to be in the right place at the right time (Cruise taking over United Artists) to get it made.

Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968, Jack Hill)

Spider Baby might not be “the maddest story ever told,” but it comes somewhat close.

The film’s a strange mix of haunted house, 1950s sci-fi and cartoon humor–I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a live action cartoon; it’s like “Scooby Doo” on expired sleeping pills. It opens with that 1950s sci-fi introduction, the erudite gentlemen addressing the camera. Here it’s Quinn K. Redeker, who maybe doesn’t do the erudite well, but is a solid and likable leading man for the picture.

Immediately following–oh, I forgot the amazing opening titles, which are animated and set to song (with Lon Chaney Jr. singing no less)–Spider Baby hits a snag. The introduction to the characters is awkward, following a disposable character instead of Chaney. In fact, opening it with Chaney’s arrival and skipping the awkwardness would have worked a lot better. For the first three-quarters of the film, Chaney is the film’s glue. He never lets his performance go, engaging the viewer enough there’s no need to examine anything too close. Even as he guards and enables a bunch of mutant cannibals, Chaney still brings an intense likability to his role.

The script is really pretty good. Jack Hill knows how to shoot on a limited budget (haunted house pictures don’t have to cost much and there aren’t really any special effects), but he knows more how to write for one. That awkward opening, which is a lot bigger than the rest of the film, might have been to disguise the film’s eventual small scale. It certainly seems like a much different picture after the opening, but one of the film’s constant joys is its continual reinvention.

As a horror film, even a comedic one, it has to fire the pistol on the wall eventually, but the way Hill paces things, it’s as though the viewer is willing all the elements to come together, not the filmmaker forcing them. It’s a nice mix of expectation and organic development.

But it’s too bad Chaney falls off in the last act. His character arc is just too much for him and he can’t reign it in. The other acting in this section–particularly from his three cannibals-to-be wards, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner and Sid Haig–is some of the strongest in the film. It’s also the section where Mary Mitchel and Redeker have their requisite love interest scenes together and they’re both good in them. Mitchel spends most of the movie in the background, so it’s nice when she gets some attention.

In the two flashiest roles, Washburn and Banner oscillate a little too much, but both deliver when it’s important. Washburn’s got some sturdier scenes than Banner… but Banner’s got the more salient character.

Carol Ohmart, as one of the squares, eventually has some really good moments. Actually, the only bad performance is from Karl Schanzer; his fearless and annoying lawyer (with a toothbrush mustache, something I really wasn’t expecting to see) makes many jokes fall flat. His delivery’s poor and the film, for a while, rests a lot on him and he fails.

The film has some real high points, but as the end starts to become clear, it’s also clear Hill hasn’t got his bookends to work right. There’s some off about them and when the end bookend turns into a real scene, Hill’s only moments away from making the film’s final mistake.

But even with a cheap ending, there’s a funny “The End” card and that attention to absurdity makes the film succeed. Also important are cinematographer Alfred Taylor, who does a great job–there’s quite a bit of good, black and white day for night here. Ronald Stein’s music is also important for keeping that playful but still dreadful tone.

I only heard about Spider Baby last month. I’m surprised it doesn’t have more of a vocal following.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Written, edited and directed by Jack Hill; director of photography, Alfred Taylor; music by Ronald Stein; produced by Gil Lasky and Paul Monka; released by American General Pictures.

Starring Lon Chaney Jr. (Bruno), Carol Ohmart (Emily Howe), Quinn K. Redeker (Peter Howe), Beverly Washburn (Elizabeth), Jill Banner (Virginia), Sid Haig (Ralph), Mary Mitchel (Ann Morris), Karl Schanzer (Schlocker) and Mantan Moreland (Messenger).

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My Blueberry Nights (2007, Wong Kar-wai)

I wonder what the reaction to My Blueberry Nights would have been if it were Wong Kar-wai’s first film instead of just his first English language film. Everything I’ve seen in way of critical reaction is polite, when it really ought to be anything but. My Blueberry Nights suggests a filmmaker for sale–nothing in Wong’s other work ever even suggested he’d write such an atrocious screenplay. He usually goes a long way to cast a film well, but here… Norah Jones is utterly incapable of acting. It’s more amateurish than a carpet commercial on a UHF station. The frequent use of her music is annoying as well–it makes the whole thing seem like nothing more than an advertisement for her.

It doesn’t help the opening also relies heavily on Jude Law. Law’s better than Jones, but his abject lack of character is a significant problem. Wong seems to want to imply character depth and apparently for no reason other than style. Even David Strathairn, spitting out the awkward dialogue, does nothing but remind of the superior filmmakers he’s worked with. Comparing this film to Sayles or–and I think this comparison is more intentional–Jarmusch reveals just what’s missing in My Blueberry Nights.

Wong’s always told these wonderfully subtle stories about people–even with all the style, they’re very quiet and reserved. Here, there isn’t even a story, there’s a blurb. An easy synopsis. Some catch phrases and keywords to describe the film.

Besides the awkward transitions, Wong’s composition is excellent. His use of Panavision is nice, Darius Khondji’s colors are lush and vibrant–especially the blues–the music, always something Wong uses to good effect, is poorly chosen. It’s kind of loud, rather obnoxious and definitely obvious.

It’s pretty clear what’s going on with the film. It’s hip. It’s Wong Kar-wai making a film for, I guess, what he perceives to be his English-speaking audience–a bunch of illiterate hipsters.

What’s particularly offending about the film is how much worse it gets as it goes. There’s voiceovers from Law and Jones–and if Jones can’t act a scene, listening her trying to narrate one is even worse. There’s some dumb title cards informing the viewer how long it’s been since the first scene in the present action. But the more interesting story is left untold (Jones hops from New York to Memphis after some long period of time). Wong has no sense of his characters here and he’s trying to make a movie about America, but somehow has almost no sense of it.

What Wong’s doing isn’t pretentious, it’s just bad. The acting’s bad, the plot’s bad, the dialogue’s bad, the music’s bad. If he had good actors, it’d still be bad. The creative impulse behind My Blueberry Nights decidedly lacks any artistry.

I don’t think any other director has ever had such a plummet in quality moving from one film market to another. I used to wait for Wong to make an American film… and now I’m left wondering if he’ll ever be able to make a good film again. My Blueberry Nights is so appalling, it’s hard to believe he ever will again–and I certainly hope he never does another English language project.

Piranha (1978, Joe Dante)

More than anything else, I think Pino Donaggio’s score sets Piranha apart. Initially, anyway. The film’s a very self-aware Roger Corman Jaws “homage,” but Donaggio’s score very quickly establishes it on firm ground. The score’s delicate, without any spoof-related cynicism (there’s no attempt to mimic the famous Jaws theme, Donaggio has some piranha attack music, but uses the score differently), and rather lovely in parts. With the score opening the door, Piranha‘s other singular elements come through.

Director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles maintain some of the Jaws mores, but quickly go their own way. The scale of Piranha is much smaller and it’s hard to believe how much time Dante and Sayles can get out of the story. There’s the pre-titles prologue (the biggest Jaws rip), but then Piranha immediately changes gears. The film’s got a constant sense of dread–something Dante does really well, especially for the scenes at the summer camp–and it’s difficult to notice the low budget aspects after a while, just because the film’s so ruthless in who the piranhas get. The scene at the summer camp is fantastic; the wholesale piranha attacks on the campers is startling. That scene alone puts Piranha on its own, in terms of cinema.

The film does have some playful elements, mostly at the beginning. There’s some good stop motion work from Phil Tippett; it doesn’t go anywhere and just serves to kill some running time, but it’s well done and a fine time passer. The rest of the film mostly gets its humor from Paul Bartel as the summer camp director. He’s a complete jackass and his scenes do provide a little relief.

It’s hard to say what’s more important for the film, Dante’s direction or Sayles’s script. The film looks so much like a Joe Dante picture–with Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and the stop motion tangent–he seems the easy answer. But Sayles doesn’t just bring a fine attention to turning the little scenes with throwaway dialogue into real scenes (I’m thinking most of the scenes with Melody Thomas Scott and Shannon Collins, but also the even shorter water skiing scene), his pacing also makes the film work. There’s a break in the action during the second act, when the piranha attacks cease for about ten minutes (in a ninety-some minute picture, ten is a lot). Sayles is able to turn the dread to eleven here, with the summer camp attack then realizing it. But it’s Dante who makes that attack so visceral and affecting.

It’s complicated.

The acting’s decent–Bradford Dillman’s a solid lead, Heather Menzies is fine as the private investigator (though it’s unclear why her boss, a good Richard Deacon, doesn’t trust her). McCarthy, Miller and Keenan Wynn are, no shock, the best. Thomas Scott and fellow camp counselor Belinda Balaski are both good.

I think I’ve seen Piranha before, but it’s been ten or eleven years and I barely remember it if I did. It’s a lot better than I thought it would be; it seems to be overlooked and under-appreciated, regarded as a trifle instead of a credible film. It’s certainly the latter.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962, Tony Richardson)

Despite its title, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner doesn’t really concern itself with loneliness and the only long distance running is secondary in the narrative. The film’s really something of a social piece, made rather conspicuous in the third act, with the comparison between the public school and the reform school. That moment, with the public school students appearing to be rubes, seems a little off. Wouldn’t they be wary of the delinquents?

The film’s about a teenage delinquent (twenty-five year-old, and it shows, Tom Courtenay) who proves to be an excellent runner at reform school. Headmaster Michael Redgrave (in a throwaway part) has a big thing for athletics, having been a runner in his younger days, and Courtenay becomes his new star. But the majority of the narrative is flashback, leading up to Courtenay being caught and sent to the school. His crime is identified, in a narratively flimsy scene, when he talks to the school counselor. The counselor, who practically opens the film, is a fine example of Loneliness‘s biggest problem–it forgets about people.

With an hour and forty minute running time, one might think Loneliness had time to keep track of its principal cast, but the counselor is the first to go, followed by James Bolam, who appears in the modern action from the flashback without any solid narrative reason. So much of the film is spent in flashback, with Courtenay really doing well (if looking eight years too old) in those scenes. But it’s also in those scenes where the film reveals itself–the story’s not about a teenage delinquent off at reform school, it’s about a son adrift following his father’s death–and the reform school scenes can’t really compete, because they’re disconnected from that character.

The end, of course, tries to bring everything together, but Richardson’s style–five second repeats of earlier scenes–doesn’t work at all. Richardson’s direction here is mostly solid, even excellent, but the little flourishes (the film uses a jazz score to poor effect) distract from his otherwise fine work. There are some beautiful long shots of the training runs, with Walter Lassally’s black and white cinematography exquisite. A scene at the beach, with Courtenay and girlfriend Topsy Jane, is also very well done; Richardson can’t quite marry the technical quality and the story, however.

Alan Stillitoe adapted his own short story, but the content–and the way so much is left out–suggests he added material to make up for feature length. The result, combined with the seemingly overpowering urge to make a statement, is a confused film. It’s interesting technically (and historically), competently acted, but entirely dispassionate. Richardson’s going for a certain amount of distance, but he never quite makes the case of Courtenay’s character deserving our attention. At home, with the death of the father, definitely; at the reform school, not so much, which might be why those scenes become less and less prevalent as the running time progresses.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Tony Richardson; screenplay by Alan Stilltoe, based on his short story; director of photography, Walter Lassally; edited by Antony Gibbs; music by John Addison; production designer, Ralph W. Brinton; released by British Lion-Columbia Ltd.

Starring Michael Redgrave (Ruxton Towers Reformatory governor), Tom Courtenay (Colin Smith), Avis Bunnage (Mrs. Smith), Alec McCowen (Brown, House Master), James Bolam (Mike), Joe Robinson (Roach), Dervis Ward (Detective), Topsy Jane (Audrey) and Julia Foster (Gladys).

Beautiful Girls (1996, Ted Demme)

Of the principals, only Michael Rapaport is under thirty (Beautiful Girls hinges on a ten-year high school reunion) and much of the running time can be spent wondering how the viewer is supposed to believe Timothy Hutton isn’t thirty-five years old (he’s actually thirty-six). Hutton gives one of the film’s best performances, frequently transcending the script and its severe deficiencies (almost every event is a sitcom trope). His best scenes are with Noah Emmerich (whose performance is shockingly broad, even in this cast) and Natalie Portman. In their scenes together, both Hutton and Portman stumble through the awkward dialogue and create the film’s only (comparatively) honest relationship.

That relationship doesn’t have to be too real, since every other one in the picture is a hackneyed mess. Screen-“writer” Scott Rosenberg seems to fancy himself a more WASPy Kevin Smith with all the pop culture references. Only Ted Demme’s incredible direction–and it really is fantastic in every area except the film’s writing–saves the film. Besides Demme’s fantastic choice of look and sound for the picture (Adam Kimmel’s photography and David A. Stewart’s score), he also gets a lot of solid little moments in. Max Perlich has almost no function in the script, but under Demme’s direction, his occasional asides are some of the best moments in the film. Rosie O’Donnell basically gets a couple big monologues (I believe these were ghost-written for her; Rosenberg’s unabashedly sexist script doesn’t indicate he’s a feminist), but has some good little moments as well.

Beautiful Girls‘s greatest failings are all script-related, but having some terrible performances doesn’t hurt much either. The three worst performances are from Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman and Lauren Holly. Holly’s got what’s probably the film’s most difficult role and instead she plays it like a poorly articulated mannequin. I know I just got done complementing Demme with actors… but Holly doesn’t have any room for asides. Her character’s all epical, as is Dillon’s. Dillon’s so goofy in the film, it’s like he’s lampooning a former teen actor who can’t catch a break. His character is terribly written (none of the main characters make any sense being in their late twenties… it’s clear they’ve only existed since the end of the opening logo), but even so… Dillon still does a real bad job. Both he and Hutton lower their voices to make them gruff for whatever reason. Hutton it doesn’t work with, but there’s a still a performance backing it up. Dillon doesn’t have that luxury.

Thurman actually should be all fluff material, but the script places so much weight on her character, it’s hilarious to watch her. She’s absolutely incapable of creating even the semblance of a human being. Every one of her scenes is painful to watch.

The best performance is probably Mira Sorvino. She doesn’t have much of a character, but Sorvino essays the role brilliantly.

Otherwise… I guess Martha Plimpton and Pruitt Taylor Vince are both okay. They aren’t bad and they don’t embarrass themselves (why Miramax put Rapaport in this one, I can’t even imagine–he doesn’t have an honest second here).

The only real draw is Demme and his superior talent.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Ted Demme; written by Scott Rosenberg; director of photography, Adam Kimmel; edited by Jeffrey Wolf; music by David A. Stewart; production designer, Dan Davis; produced by Cary Woods; released by Miramax Films.

Starring Matt Dillon (Tommy), Michael Rapaport (Paul), Martha Plimpton (Jan), Mira Sorvino (Sharon), Lauren Holly (Darian), Timothy Hutton (Willie), Annabeth Gish (Tracy), Natalie Portman (Marty), Uma Thurman (Andera), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Stanley), Anne Bobby (Sarah), Rosie O’Donnell (Gina), Noah Emmerich (Mo) and Max Perlich (Kev).

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