The Good: Costumes, Camera direction ?
The Bad: Lack of "hook," Bland performances all around.
The Basics: I can't even recommend An Ideal Husband for the quality of the bodices. How sad is that? There's a complete lack of talented actors using their skills.
Whenever one is tempted to use the words "subjected to" in a review of art, it cannot bode well for the art being reviewed. I shall open my review of An Ideal Husband, then by revealing that I was watching this film with a friend of mine. We had seen a preview for it before Shakespeare In Love (reviewed here!) and decided (based on corsets, Driver and Blanchette) that we would see it. After half an hour of it, she was so bored that I could not - feeling the same way - subject her to the film any longer. I ended up watching the rest of it later last night so I could fairly review the film here. I suppose this is the type of film I miss getting paid regularly for reviewing; were it not for writing this review, I don't think I would have finished the movie.
Why is that? It's an utter lack of interest. We went into the film prepared to enjoy it; we were eager to see it, she had even requested I pick this tape up. The film fell flat immediately. It took me much of the night to realize why, but it's this: the acting. Not only is no one giving a stellar performance, no one in the film is giving a passable performance. I read the play, I realized, and I remember enjoying reading it. To that, I added tone, nuance, to my imaginings of Wilde's play. He wrote it, the screenplay is closely based on it, the story is his.
The problem is, none of the actors are measuring up. There's a layer of intrigue to the words, there's a whole set of conspiracies going on that are alluded to. And yet, my companion turned to me after twenty minutes of the film and said, "I'm not caring about this secret in his (Robert Chiltern's) past they keep suggesting." She was right. Until she articulated it, I was simply bored. The reason I wasn't caring about the doings in the film was none of the characters were making me care. I blame it, in this case, on the actors. Why? When I read the play, I was interested enough. So, when I watched the last hour+ of it, I paid attention to the acting. It's not there. The actors are simply repeating lines. They are repeating lines. If you're reading the line "They are repeating lines" in anything other than a monotone, then you've more imagination than the actors in An Ideal Husband. Maybe the director is at fault.
Regardless of who takes the blame, the best I could come up with to recommend this film were the costumes. Mmmm . . . corsets. Period costume rocks. People today don't wear nearly enough in the way of bodices, draping seamless satin, or black top hats and canes. Okay, the costumes are pretty wonderful here. And, I suppose the camera work is okay because it was easy to watch.
An Ideal Husband concerns Sir Robert Chiltern in his political crossroads; he is being extorted by Mrs. Laura Cheveley (who is played surprisingly ineptly by the usually wonderful Julianne Moore) about a secret in his past in order to gain his support for a canal in Argentina that is a financial scam. Interspersed with this is an ill-executed series of romantic intrigues between Chiltern's wife, Lord Goring, and Chiltern's sister Mabel. The focus is placed on Goring's affairs and, well, frankly, they're not interesting.
Basically, it's a story of overlapping romantic capers and political intrigue. The Phantom Menace (reviewed here!) did both with more engaging acting and technique than this film. I'm not going to go on past that.
For other works featuring Julianne Moore, please check out my reviews of:
30 Rock - Season 4
The Kids Are All Right
Magnolia
1/10
For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment