R.I.P. Carrie Fisher: Postcards From The Edge Had So Much Potential!

The Good: Good performances, Some wonderful lines (both funny and dramatic), Good direction
The Bad: Glosses over much of the complexity of recovery and narcissism
The Basics: The moments of insight and wit make Postcards From The Edge a worthwhile film to watch, even if it is not nearly as complex in its resolution as the set-up indicates it might be.


When news broke that actress Carrie Fisher had suffered a heart attack on December 23, my heart sunk. 2016 has been a brutal year for deaths of beloved celebrities, writers, musical artists, and actors and while I joined my voice to wish for the best for Carrie Fisher and her speedy recovery, I had no reason to believe that 2016 would alter its momentum and Fisher would recover from her good health. So, when I awoke yesterday to the news that Fisher had died, I was very sad, but not surprised. The days between the two major news stories gave me time to consider what I would write as a tribute to Carrie Fisher.

Like most people, my first and enduring encounter with Carrie Fisher came from her iconic portrayal of the strong-willed Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars Saga (reviewed here!). Fisher also delivers brilliantly the lines that help create my favorite moment in When Harry Met Sally . . . (reviewed here!) and that got me thinking about how much I came to enjoy watching interviews with Fisher over the years for her candid nature and wry wit. So, when Fisher was hospitalized, it occurred to me that the greatest tribute to Carrie Fisher I could provide would be in reviewing something new (to me) that illustrated Fisher's humor, honesty, and creative skill. For that, I decided it was time to watch Postcards From The Edge.

Postcards From The Edge was released cinematically when I was a teenager, shortly after I had discovered and become obsessed with Star Trek and was fully immersed in that culture. Ironically, a film that addressed in a straightforward manner mental illness probably would have served me better at that time in my life, but Carrie Fisher's cinematic adaptation of her own novel on the subject of substance abuse and living in the shadow of parental pressures is worthwhile and smart. This review is of Postcards From The Edge, which Fisher loosely based upon some of her own life experiences; while some might belabor making the connections between the art and the reality, I am opting for a pure review of the film as it stands on its own.

Actress Suzanne Vale is working on the set of a film, where she is having a rough time of getting through her lines because she is high and the director she is working with tries to avoid cuts in his shots. Shortly thereafter, Vale is unresponsive in bed with Jack Faulkner, who rushes her to the hospital. After her stomach is pumped and she regains consciousness, Vale has to confront her drug abuse. Her celebrity mother comes to visit her in rehab, whose narcissistic tendencies make it difficult for Suzanne to confront her issues. Coming out of rehab, Vale discovers that it is hard for her to get work again because of her history with drugs.

Vale is given the chance to act again if she stays with "a responsible party" during the shoot. Drug tested on the set, Vale is forced to live under her mother's roof where she is subjected to her mother's expectations and pressures. Doris (Vale's mother), puts Suzanne on display and pressures her to perform publicly at a party she throws for her daughter and it becomes clear that Doris is trying to remain relevant and active through Suzanne. Returning to the set the next day, Vale gets a lot of notes on her performance and overhears people talking about her physique, which make it tough for her to give a good performance. After her second day of work, she runs into Faulkner, who starts to pursue her. When Faulkner visits Vale's home, Doris hits on him, but Vale willingly gets into a relationship with him. But, when she learns that Faulkner is sleeping around and she tires of her mother's drinking around her, Vale begins to fight for her own identity and stand up for her own hopes and dreams.

Postcards From The Edge is tough to discuss without some references to Carrie Fisher because Meryl Streep's portrayal of Suzanne Vale so perfectly captures some of the cadences of Carrie Fisher as to make it painfully obvious that the character, or Streep's performance, is based upon her. Streep adapts a speech pattern virtually identical to Carrie Fisher's in many of Vale's most potent deliveries of irony and exasperation. Streep makes Vale accessible and interesting, even as viewers become more and more frustrated with the environment she is in and the people who surround her.

When Vale starts to realize that Doris is her "x-factor" that brings her the stress that begins to make her tempted to use drugs and alcohol, Streep is able to break out and make Vale seem vital in a way that the first half of the movie does not. When Vale asserts herself, Postcards From The Edge starts to take on a richness and level of intrigue that turns the uncomfortable comedy into a potent drama. Streep succeeds more as Vale when she can be heard - there are a number of scenes where she and Shirley MacLaine talk over one another - and Postcards From The Edge works best when it is focused on her.

It is not long into Postcards From The Edge that it becomes obvious that Suzanne Vale is struggling under the yolk of pressure and expectations from her narcissistic mother, Doris. Doris hijacks the party thrown in Suzanne's honor and flirts with Faulkner in a troubling way. Postcards From The Edge does an excellent job of creating a narcissistic character in the form of Doris Mann, but glosses over the complexity of confronting and surviving toxic people in order to deliver a "feel good" ending.

Postcards From The Edge does a rare thing in confronting familial alcoholism and substance abuse and creates a vivid portrait of a horrible narcissist . . . but to get the film into a hundred minute run time and be easily classifiable, the movie creates a situation that is complex and realistic, but then resolves it remarkably simplistically. That makes Postcards From The Edge a bit less satisfying than it ought to be, especially given how good all of the performances are and how decent the characters are when they are allowed to breathe and develop.

Perhaps that is the most fitting epitaph for Carrie Fisher, who railed against having to look a specific way in order to appear in the newest Star Wars films; she worked in an industry that values style over substance and Fisher had a mind for complexity and realism where consumers buy into flash and simplicity. The sad truth is that Carrie Fisher might well have been better as a writer and human being than she was ever allowed to be as a performer and she (and her audience) deserved better.

For other 2016 tribute reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Blackstar - David Bowie
Mother's Day - Garry Marshall
Strangers - Merle Haggard
Firefly Soundtrack - Ron Glass

6/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Mental Illness Trumps Social Commentary In Bulworth!

The Good: Political message, Performances
The Bad: Character problems, Writing/themes
The Basics: Bulworth has some good ideas, which are undermined by the execution of its high-minded principles.


Every now and then, I finally get around to the massive list of films I have that people have recommended to me and I get to watch one. Tonight, the film that I've finally cleared from my list is Bullworth. For years, I have been politically active and between commentary and activism, friends have recommended various films to me. While I've long loved The West Wing (reviewed here!), one of the films that it took me a long time to get to was Bulworth. While I respect the people who recommended Bulworth to me, the film has enough flaws to be impossible for me to recommend.

The concept of Bulworth is not an inherently bad one, but its execution allows virtually the entire film to be written off as the ravings of a mentally ill man. One of the main warning signs of schizophrenia is a lingual problem called "clanging." Throughout Bulworth, the protagonist frequently raps in a way that is much more clanging than rational rebellion, which means Bulworth is more about a man suffering a full psychological collapse as opposed to a man who has a mid-life crisis and starts standing up for his long-abandoned principles.

As the 1996 elections loom, California Senator Jay Billington Bulworth finds himself despondent. Once a fiery liberal Senator, Bulworth has sold out all his principles. So, he takes out a massive insurance policy on himself and hires a hitman to kill him while he is campaigning in California. Bulworth's behavior becomes alarming to the party when he starts to call out the financiers of his campaign, straightforwardly telling his audiences that he is bought and paid for by various industries and rapping to them about how change won't come while there is money so intimately integrated in American politics.

While fleeing his financiers, Bulworth connects with Nina, a young woman under the thumb of a local drug lord, thanks to her brother's debts. Nina titillates Bulworth and takes him to a rave. Amid the affection and the drugs, Bulworth begins to feel like the man he once was and decides he no longer wants to die. As Bulworth and Nina flee to the ghetto, Bulworth comes to realize that the danger might be closer than he thought!

Bulworth is a heavy R for language and for as much as Warren Beatty tosses out the f-word, the film is more horrifying for the way the word "nigger" is thrown around. While the word is used as a form of characterization, the message of the film is frequently lost by the casual use of obscenities. In other words, the epitaphs are thrown around not as a function of political outrage, but rather to characterize Bulworth's mental decline and the culture of many of the black characters living in the ghetto.

The performances in Bulworth are almost universally wonderful. Halle Berry's performance as Nina is unlike any other role she had. It's weird watching Cloud Atlas (reviewed here!) and then go over to Bulworth where Berry looks so young running around with her thong sticking out, but Berry plays the spunky and desperate Nina surprisingly well. Similarly, Don Cheadle's L.D. is far from his articulate and socially active roles as he plays the part with unsettling menace.

Warren Beatty slouches through the role of Bulworth and he plays the part with a decent balance of slurring and hinting at the prior potential of the character. Bulworth might have once been an upstanding, principled man but he is a buffoon now and Beatty plays that astonishingly well.

Unfortunately, the quality of the performances is nowhere near enough to carry the film. At its best, Bulworth hints at establishing a high-minded debate about the critical problems with finance in American politics. At its worst, Bulworth is a high man running around clanging. The latter overwhelms the former and makes it impossible to recommend Bulworth.

For other political films, please check out my reviews of:
The American President
Game Change
All The President's Men

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Amazing Cast Helps Create A Surprisingly Good Family Comedy With Beethoven!

The Good: Decent cast, Moments of plot, performance, and theme
The Bad: Some hammy overacting/family movie conceits
The Basics: Despite its over-the-top silliness at points, Beethoven holds up as a strong family comedy!


As a matter of sharing parts of herself, my wife will periodically have me get out movies I either missed that she watched and enjoyed or films from her past that I have never had the impetus to watch before. A few weekends back, I had a taste from each category when she got out Game Change (reviewed here!) and Beethoven. The irony for me was that the film I expected to appreciate more - Game Change - did not hold up nearly as well as the family flick my wife recalled from her childhood and wanted to see again.

From the opening shots of Beethoven, as I realized I was watching a young(er) Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci and that this family film that spawned several sequels actually had an impressive cast (mostly talent before they hit it big), Beethoven actually manages to entertain and tell a family friendly story in a way that makes it reasonable that it would start a franchise. Beethoven is hampered by the conceits that make it feel like a Disney live-action film (it is not!); hammy overacting, reversals that are larger than life and a plot progression so predictable that only children will not see the end coming in the opening frames of the film. Even so, for a movie hampered by such obvious conceits and employing both child and animal actors (neither is overly recommended by most directors), Beethoven manages to tell a decent story and, to be fair to it with all of the genre problems it possesses, is not a film I felt like I’ve seen a thousand times over.

The patriarch of the Newton family, George, is a reticent business-focused man who has worked hard to provide for his wife and three children (two daughters, one son). One morning, after the witless criminals Harvey and Vernon rob a pet shop of its puppies and two of them escape, a cute St. Bernard puppy, wanders into George’s home and wakes up little Emily with dog kisses. Pressured into keeping the puppy by the family that sees him as inhuman, George suddenly starts spending an inordinate amount of time and money on providing for the dog, who is soon named Beethoven. While George struggles to win new corporate patrons for his air fresheners, the family falls in love with Beethoven.

But Harvey and Vernon were not working alone. They were employed by the nefarious veterinarian, Dr. Varnick. Varnick has taken money from a gun manufacturer who wants small animals in order to test its new bullets. When Varnick discovers Beethoven (who by that time has grown to have a skull density that a bullet manufacturer would really appreciate!), he orchestrates a kidnapping that could result in the dog’s death. George has to choose between believing the authoritative vet and his daughter, who witnessed the set-up; it is a choice between mounting a dangerous rescue or allowing Beethoven to be put to death!

Beethoven makes good use of the talent involved and it is easy to see how David Duchovny, Patricia Heaton, Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci and even Charles Grodin (who plays George unfortunately like a boss I once had who was a complete and total ass!) were eager to take the project. Despite Heaton and Duchovny being tossed about and forced to do the screams one might expect out of a Little Rascals short, they have the chance to play villains who are stiff and eager to take advantage of Grodin’s George. The roles are different from anything else I have seen them play, so it does give them something completely different to play.

The child actors in Beethoven are surprisingly not horrible, which is a rare thing for me to find. Led by Nicholle Tom (Ryce), the Newton children seem like a viable family and they are presented in a professional and realistic way. Sarah Rose Karr brings more to Emily than a cute face – she plays determined and hurt well and when her character, neglected, falls in a pool, the viewer actually believes she is drowning. Even Christopher Castile does fine as Ted.

What was unsurprising to me was that the actor who played the title character, Beethoven, was only in this film. Chris is a big dog and what shocked me was that director Brian Levant included scenes where Chris was clearly limping! Regardless of the disclaimers at the end of the credits, it does not seem like Chris was in the best of health when Beethoven was shot.

And the main plot conceit – testing new bullets on dogs – is absurd and monstrous enough to add menace to the film. It is probably enough to scare children, but as an adult, I was more surprised that the film was audacious enough to present such a strong stance on animal cruelty and testing. Such plots are usually relegated to a b-plot in an animated film, but Beethoven puts it up front as the a-plot in the live-action film. Color me impressed.

Not to be taken overly seriously as a work of great cinema, Beethoven nevertheless impresses in that it has an impressive cast working in ways I had never seen.

For other works featuring Melora Walters, please check out my reviews of:
The Master
Cold Mountain
Matchstick Men
Magnolia
Boogie Nights
Hard Eight

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Amazing Cast And Well-Executed Concept Make The Ten Worth Watching!

The Good: Interesting concept, well executed, Decent performances, Very funny.
The Bad: No real character development, Somewhat limited concept, Does not replay as well.
The Basics: A cleverly-executed comedy, The Ten explores a series of situations that remind viewers (ironically) of the importance of the Ten Commandments.


Given how limited many horror movies can be, it is unsurprising that the antithesis – comedies – can be similarly basic in their concept. If Seven was a horror film focused on a killer who is motivated by the seven deadly sins, it is equally ambitious or simple to have a comedy like The Ten. The Ten has the very simple concept of creating vignettes on the Ten Commandments that overlap in minimal ways. Several of the characters recur from sequence to sequence, with “character development” taking the form of them experiencing more variations of violations of the Ten Commandments.

In other words, The Ten has far less in the way of memorable characters and much more in the way of memorable gags or plot twists that disturb while they amuse. More than the characters, much of the joy for viewers comes from how the actors are utilized and how they pop back into the narrative in initially clever ways. After watching the film twice, I can honestly say there are none of the characters I particularly care about, but I enjoyed the movie and enjoyed how the actors were utilized to serve the fairly clever plot concept.

After a beleaguered narrator (who is on the fast track to have an affair himself) explains the concept of the film, the story begins with Stephen Montgomery. Stephen accidentally jumps out of a plane and miraculously survives the fall. However, Stephen is embedded in the ground where he becomes an overnight star. Even though his fiancé Kelly sticks by him, the superstardom that he achieves for the television show based around him goes to his head. Others begin treating him like a god and he arrogantly lets it go to his head, until he loses everything. This is followed by the story of Gloria, who goes to Mexico, meets Jesus there and has a torrid affair with him. When she returns home and has sex with her boyfriend, she calls out “Jesus!” and ruins their relationship, illustrating the importance of not taking the lord’s name in vain. Dr. Glenn Richie (who essentially had a cameo in the first vignette) pops back up in the “Thou Shall Not Murder” sequence where he kills a woman by leaving medical scissors in her body after surgery. While he did the medical malpractice “as a goof,” he is quickly prosecuted, found guilty and goes to prison where he is pretty constantly ass-raped.

After a woman who has two black children who denies (for decades) that they have a father other than the white man who raised them comes clean about her affair with Arnold Schwarzenegger, her children realize that the actor she hired to impersonate Schwarzenegger is more a father than they ever had before, illustrating that it is important to honor one’s father and mother. A convoluted series of events leads to the death of a whole fieldtrip worth of children when they cannot get CAT scans they need when competing neighbors buy truckloads of scanners and go out together to bury the hatchet. In prison, Duane Rosenblum covets Dr. Richie leading to a very dark exchange that results in Richie being horribly violated by Rosenblum (instead of his regular prison rapist!). The story of the drug-dealing Lying Rhino becomes the less for not bearing false witness and men getting together for naked Sundays is the premise for honoring the Sabbath and keeping it holy.

The Tenreally goes out of its way to create convoluted situations to make its points. The prison ass rape concept for not coveting your neighbor’s wife is so over-the-top that it avoids the minor discomfort of rape jokes and leaps into the area of taste that actually addresses what bad taste simple rape jokes have. It’s risqué, but the film makes it work. In explaining “Thou Shall Not Steal,” The Ten reaches its highest level of meta-conscious humor: it is Winona Ryder’s Kelly who steals a ventriloquist dummy to have an affair with who illustrates that commandment! In other words, The Ten is not for the comically faint of heart. The humor is ballsy and pushes the envelope, but the movie makes its point well.

And The Ten has a pretty amazing cast, especially for a movie I had never heard of. Led by Paul Rudd, The Ten features established talents like Oliver Platt, Ron Silver, Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen, Jason Sudeikis, Live Schreiber, Justin Theroux, and Jessica Alba. Some have little more than a brief cameo, like Janeane Garofalo (who is in a single sequence for a single scene). Newer talents like Rob Corddry, Rashida Jones, Joe Lo Truglio, Gretchen Mol, and Adam Brody all have good outings in their respective segments.

But more than a cohesive movie, The Ten is a concept film and the concept is quickly established and then beaten to death. It is not unpleasant – though the film has somewhat low replayability – and the star power overshadows the characters many of the performers play , but The Ten is well worth watching for anyone who wants a comedy that is beyond the ordinary.

For other works with Jo Lo Truglio, please visit my reviews of:
Wreck-It Ralph
Pitch Perfect
Wanderlust
Paul
I Love You, Man
Pineapple Express

6.5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against other movies I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page for a listing of those reviews from best to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Note To Harold Ramis: Return To Comedy (The Ice Harvest Is Frigid)

The Good: Decent acting
The Bad: Predictable story, Characters are generally awful, Not funny
The Basics: With its dark edge blunted by ridiculous humor, The Ice Harvest lacks a place to become decent at either drama or comedy or something in between.


There are several successful movies that fall outside the strict categories that most people like to classify films in. I am always perplexed when searching for Brazil to find it in the "Comedy" section, a clear mark that someone has not seen the entire film or understood it. The American President and the show Wonderfalls come right to mind of works that effectively blend comedy and drama into what is quickly becoming known as dramadies. Aaron Sorkin (The American President, Sports Night, and The West Wing) seems to be a master of dramadies, creating either comedies that aren't funny enough to be called comedies or dramas that are constantly making jokes. Aaron Sorkin is a master of the dramedy. Harold Ramis is not.

With The Ice Harvest, Ramis directs a movie that is billed as a dark comedy that seems to have forgotten the actual comedy. Or perhaps it - like Brazil - was mislabeled as a comedy. In which case, this is a drama that mortgages almost every dramatic moment with a gag or punctuates it with slapstick. I loathe slapstick. As it stands, I think The Ice Harvest is far too dramatic to be a comedy and as a result, the humor in the movie, which is very dark in tone, comes off as far too forced to be real or enjoyable.

Charlie, lawyer for the mob in Witchita Falls, is spending Christmas Eve running from the mob which he has just stolen over two million dollars from. With his partner in crime, though it's unclear why, Vic, Charlie spends the day preparing to flee Kansas and go somewhere else. In the process, he aids local strippers, the drunk who is now married to his wife, and occasionally, himself. He runs repeatedly into Officer Tyler, who wants Charlie to put in a good word for him with the mob, as he tries to out run and outwit the assassins sent to kill him and recover the mob's money.

First off, the R rating here is pretty much only for background nudity throughout the movie and some serious violence near the movie's end. Most of the movie would be perfectly appropriate for people younger than 18, but most people under 18 would not be entertained by the film. Actually, it's hard to feel entertained over 18 by The Ice Harvest.

I've no problem with violence in movies. The problem with The Ice Harvest is that in defying conventions of either comedy or drama it ends up doing neither terribly well. So, for example, at one point Vic and Charlie are moving a footlocker and Ramis continually pans back to Vic's gun, which is pointed on Charlie throughout. The audience, well before Charlie, is able to infer that Vic is planning to make a move on his partner. Not funny. This is immediately followed by a scene where someone is sent to die in freezing cold water. Also, not funny. The punctuation to it is Charlie running frantically because he realized he forgot to get something from the dying person. The joke falls flat.

In fact, the only real humor that works is in a scene between Vic and Charlie wherein the two are loading the footlocker into Charlie's borrowed car. The pair is using Charlie's car because of how roomy it is rumored to be and the dialogue in that scene is funny, even if it is predictable.

Sadly, that's the only real humor in The Ice Harvest that works. The writers and director Harold Ramis no doubt expect such characters as Pete to come across as funny. He's a drunk and he obligingly makes a spectacle of himself and vomits in the course of the movie. But he's not funny and his character is not funny. Indeed, Charlie easily uses Pete to make one of the movie's most dramatic sheerings. Pete was sleeping with Charlie's wife before she and Charlie divorced. Charlie muses about who she might be sleeping with now, a question that has not occurred to Pete before that moment.

Sadly, none of the characters are likable. The movie starts as a story of a man who lacks character who just wants to get out of Kansas (who can blame him?) and decides robbery is the way he is going to go about it. It quickly degenerates into a whole lot of killing. Charlie is clearly upset by this at first, which felt very real, but he quickly acclimates to it and that weakened his character significantly.

In fact, all that does work in this movie with consistency is the acting. Oliver Platt plays the unlikable Pete very well. Unfortunately for Platt, his character is given some lines which don't quite fit his character. So, while "Yo-ho-ho, mo-fo!" is a funny line and Platt delivers it surprisingly well, it does not fit his character's background or setting at all. Billy Bob Thornton plays Vic well enough (I seem to recall him being better in ), but is not earth shattering.

John Cusak is the lead here and I wanted to like him. The Ice Harvest slides by without his charisma that he has displayed to his advantage in other movies. Instead, he seems out of place, though he plays the dramatic moments well. His ability to convey understanding with a look, communicating with his eyes, serves him well here. When the movie began, I felt that Nicolas Cage could have done the role and perhaps the reason Ramis used Cusak was because he wanted to try to sell this as a comedy. Had he gone straight drama and used Cage - or played Cusak as darker - perhaps The Ice Harvest would have worked.

But, that's not this movie. While the movie claimed to be 88 minutes long, it felt far longer with its consistent, oppressive tone.

As un-chic as it is at this point, everywhere The Ice Harvest fails - especially in character - is a place Payback succeeds. Mel Gibson may not be the most popular person right now, but Payback tells a quirky, dark, dramatic story of people of low moral caliber far better than this work did. So, Mr. Ramis, please, return to comedy and leave the dark killer stories to people who revel in that better.

For other works with Mike Starr, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Jersey Girl
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang”
Snake Eyes
Miller’s Crossing

3.5/10

For other films, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Easy To Look At . . . And Worth The Watch: Dangerous Beauty!

The Good: Nice cinematography, Decent acting, Good costumes, Directing
The Bad: Somewhat predictable character arc, the Inquisition, Disappointing DVD extras
The Basics: In Venice, a courtesan finds herself unable to be with the man she loves, so she loves the one she's with.


Marshall Herskovitz, the brainchild behind ABC's under-supported and too short-lived drama Once And Again, seems to have a following of people who get disappointed by his DVDs. I am one of them. As with the Once And Again season one boxed set (reviewed here!), Dangerous Beauty has no significant or meaningful DVD extras. There's no commentary, there's not much outside the movie's trailer. At least the DVD is inexpensive enough. Maybe Herskovitz doesn't like talking about his works. It can't be that he's ashamed of directing Dangerous Beauty.

Dangerous Beauty tells the story of Veronica Franco, a Venetian courtesan (read: prostitute of legitimate social standing in Venice at the time) who falls in love with Marco Venier, a good-looking, charming nobleman. Actually, she starts out simply as a woman who loves a man, but Marco will not marry her because she does not come from the right social standing or wealth or some other such nonsense. Veronica then becomes a courtesan, which involves her having a good deal of sex without Marco. Veronica becomes powerful in Venice, Marco (despite marrying another woman) still pines for her, and there's a lot of tension around the whole romance. The tension between Marco and Veronica is complicated by Marco's jealous hack of a poet brother, Maffio, and by impending war which necessitates Veronica bedding the King of France.

What goes a long way to helping Dangerous Beauty is that the actors are all fabulous and the film looks good. The scenery looks good, the people look good, the costumes look good; this is an easy movie to sit and watch. Indeed, part of what makes it easy to watch is the casting. Despite the obvious Hollywood-style beauty of the film's star, Catherine McCormack, no one in the movie is over-the-top, ridiculously, out-of-reach beautiful. In fact, the men have a wide array of faces and bodytypes and Rufus Sewell has a character to his form that makes him seem less like the typical Hollywood male.

But in addition to McCormack and the non-threatening looks of Rufus Sewell, the film goes out of its way to have a diverse range of body types (if not ethnicities, a reality for a period piece). Oliver Platt rounds out the main cast with a look that is definitely not the Hollywood standard. Similarly, other stars in the movie, like Fred Ward (Domenico) and Jake Weber (King Henry), look different from the typical chiseled men in movies. The net result is that this is a movie that is very easy to watch because it feels very accessible. Because the people look more like people, it brings realism and humanity to them and their struggles. Moreover, it adds realism to many of the men utilizing the services of a courtesan. It's always harder to believe that someone who is the ideal of beauty (male or female) who looks like they could have anyone, would do such things. Here, the casting makes a huge difference to the viewer believing in the time and place of the story.

The lone drawback of Dangerous Beauty as a movie, is actually two things deeply intertwined. The story of Dangerous Beauty is basically that of just about any romantic drama: two people love one another, their love is either forbidden or impractical to maintain, they find themselves apart, they still love each other, they make a change to end up together (or, in the rarer story, something happens forever preventing them from being together). It's a pretty classic plot. Thus, as Marco goes to war for Venice, we wait for his return to wrap up the romance and - given the tenor of the rest of the movie - it seems unlikely that Marco and Veronica will not finish the movie together or, at least, still in love.

The problem here is with the method. The Inquisition ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!") suddenly pops up in Venice with all sorts of authority and tries Veronica as a witch. The problem here is that there was nothing in the story to suggest (other than actual history not relayed in the movie) that Venice was a terribly devout lot of Catholics to begin with or even interested in letting the Pope rule over anything. In fact, there is such utter disregard for the Church throughout the first three quarters of the film that when the Inquisition suddenly appears as the Plague begins to ravage Venice, it feels like a red herring in the story. And, in the end, all it truly serves to do is allow Marco to stand up and say the things to Veronica that the audience already knows about his love for her. In the end, there is no net gain from the Inquisition stuff, there is no genuine catharsis and there is no feeling that we have viewed anything miraculous, because we already knew how Marco felt.

Conversely, for the type of film this is, Maffio makes an excellent villain from the start. His character arc, which allows him to become affiliated with the Inquisition, seems very real and natural. The problem is, once the forces of the Inquisition are put to bay by Marco's heartfelt plea, Maffio and all of his character conflict disappears and it seems like it was never so impressive to begin with.

In the end, though, the film is worthwhile, not simply for its look, but for its substance. Herskovitz seems to attach himself to projects where the dialog is both sharp and witty and stunningly realistic. The writing credits on Dangerous Beauty go to Margaret Rosenthal and Jeannine Dominy, who have a keen ear for quick dialog; it's easy to see why Herskovitz would want to be associated with this project. If only he wanted to talk about it, though . . .

For other works Marshall Herskovitz was involved in, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Love And Other Drugs
Once And Again - Season 2
I Am Sam

7/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movie reviews I have written.

© 2012, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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History With No Punches Pulled: Frost/Nixon Succeeds Admirably!

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful direction and character work
The Bad: Pacing at the beginning
The Basics: Despite some pacing issues that distract viewers from the emotional resonance, Frost/Nixon is a smart, powerful political interrogation film.


Sometimes, I am amused to do things out of order. It surprised me to find that I had not actually reviewed Frost/Nixon, despite loving it. So, there is some amusement to me that I end up posting my review of it after Michael Sheen's more recent film Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (reviewed here!), though having seen that film allows me to truly gush on the acting quality of Sheen. Having returned now from my second viewing of the film, I find myself eager to recommend that viewers catch it while they can. Frost/Nixon might not be a big budget effect film that seems to demand the big screen, but it is a solid film and it does more than a play does.

Indeed, while I often argue for the use of the medium - railing against such things as excessive voice-overs - I find I have no argument with Frost/Nixon. Instead, Frost/Nixon might well be the Ron Howard film that illustrates Howard lives up to the hype. In this film, Ron Howard captures perfectly the human emotion, the nuances and the subtle body language of two people who have gone to verbal war with one another.

Having resigned the presidency in disgrace, Richard M. Nixon has been pardoned yet America exists in a state of a crisis of conscience in its politics. In a self-exile from Washington and the Eastern states and their politics, Nixon seeks a way to make a comeback. David Frost, a television interviewer, is seeking a comeback as well. Having lost his television show in the United States, he now finds himself interviewing celebrities in Australia. Watching the numbers surrounding the collapse of the Nixon presidency and the potential viewership around Richard Nixon's post-presidency interviews, Frost concocts a plan to win that first interview.

Struggling to pull financiers together - because he is best known for far less serious interviews - Frost teams with James Reston Jr., Bob Zelnick and biographer John Birt to try to create a series of interviews that will allow Frost to give Nixon a public trial he never had. Nixon, defended by Jack Brennan and a small quintillion including Diane Sawyer, prepare to use the interviews to launch their return to Washington. And as the interviews begin, Frost finds himself deeply shaken and slow to counter the former President's verbal deflections and jabs. But as the lone day Watergate will be the subject approaches, Frost begins to marshal all his personal and financial resources to save the show.

Frost/Nixon has been said by many to be analogous to a chess match and in some ways, that is true. Equally true is that the film Frost/Nixon mirrors the interviews that are the subject of the movie in their form and pacing. The film and the interviews get off to something of a false start as both begin with an anticlimax: Nixon's resignation in the film and Frost's ambush of a question and realization that he may have gotten in over his head with the way he approached the former president. Then, as his friends research how to go after Nixon and Frost struggles to get funding for the program, the movie leaps ahead, much as the more nebulous middle interviews are omitted from the movie; this film is not telling that story. Then, like the movie's final half hour, the final Nixon/Frost interview is a rapid, no holds barred barrage between the two principles.

The chess match analogy works as well as the film takes quite a bit of time to establish the characters and the situation. Unfortunately, this is mostly preparing the board and moving the pieces into alignment; the real game does not start until the second half of the film. This does not work so well for the film as it meanders and is a bit slower as the mechanics of the arrangements behind the interviews are delved into much to the neglect of the characters, save David Frost who simply appears single-minded to an extreme that is possibly the best characterization he could get.

Indeed, while James, John and Bob fret about the specific questions, the early days on the film project and the money, Frost is concerned mostly with the money and making sure the project is completed. As a result, Frost is shown to be a character who is single-minded and truly has all of his livelihood running on the one project. While John Birt is obsessed with getting a confession and arranging a cathartic experience for the public, Frost is just trying to get a show made and he is content to leave the hardest parts for the end. But when forced to rise to the occasion, David Frost does and the impressive thing is that he is magnanimous in his victory, for what it is.

But for every bit that Frost is cunning and desperate, Nixon is cold and calculating. He strategizes well and it is easy to see why - despite the pre-interview attempt to block extensive inquiries by him - Jack Brennan is behind him once the cameras get rolling. Brennan is a military man and he handles Nixon after the fall and it is clear he has a lot riding emotionally on the status of Richard Nixon. And for his part, Nixon plays the game, unsettling David Frost early on and he has an easy quality to him that makes it seem at moments like he is not playing as deep of a game as he is.

It is director Ron Howard who makes sure the audience knows that Nixon is actually on his game and he does it subtly, by directing and editing the film to capture the small details. Panning slowly off Nixon to a dumfounded Frost early in one of the interviews, for example, Howard shows the viewer what is truly important - and it is not what Nixon is talking about then, it is the way he is talking and the effect it is having on David Frost. In the integral, climactic scenes of the film - which I shall not ruin for those who have not seen the previews - Howard captures the details, the looks in Nixon's eyes, the way Frost bites his tongue at the right moment and the patience to capture moments with silence in them. This is what makes the movie truly great.

This is not to say the film is flawless; far from it. Frost/Nixon takes a bit to get going and in its uncertain beginning, the viewer begins to wonder if this will be more like Charlie Wilson's War (reviewed here!) where the film is not about the events or the effects, but rather the behind-the-scenes exclusively. The difference, of course, is the difference between the show and the show behind the show. Frost/Nixon dallies in both stories, but it is definitely heavier in the process story for the bulk of the film, the fight to get the interviews made and aired. The actual interviews only comprise a small part of the film. As well, after the defining blows, the significant pieces are cleared from the board (in the chess metaphor for the movie), the movie goes on. The denouement is somewhat drawn out, but it does not feel extraneous.

But when the movie gets to them, the actors are given a huge chance to shine and explore their characters. Indeed, before the interviews actually begin within the film, the best acting arguably comes from actor Kevin Bacon. As Jack Brennan, Bacon is given to a very reserved array of facial expressions and on-screen emotions. Bacon has the ability to deliver his lines coldly and with a minimal amount of revelation and that plays perfectly to this type of character, the loyal bodyman. Bacon steals his scenes by not stealing them, by providing a subtle, constant presence that feels integral.

Frank Langella lives up to all of his hype as Richard Nixon. Classically trained and looking very little like the former president, Howard does not insult the viewer by pressing a fake nose on the actor and setting him before us. Instead, Langella hunches over, lowers his voice even more than usual and he, quite simply, sells it. There is not a moment he is on the screen that the viewer is pulled out to any of the many other roles that Langella has played. He is solidly and completely Richard Nixon in this film.

But it is hard not to rave over Michael Sheen in Frost/Nixon, despite all of the deserving praise being heaped upon Langella. Sheen, after all, is utterly convincing as the pasty-faced British journalist in this, with equal credibility as the werewolf slave-turned-king in the utterly dissimilar Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans. But this is the true essence of great acting; those who have seen the Underworld films would never guess that this is the same actor who played Lucien. That ability to so completely convince viewers of the reality of the character under both extremes is what defines an actor's range and Sheen has it. He plays this role with a deep, underlying sense of quiet seriousness and he illustrates he is exceptional.

On DVD, the film is impressively presented with decent sound and visual quality. As well, Ron Howard provides a full commentary and there is a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes. The bonus features are decent and pretty much what one expects from a drama of this caliber.

More than just great performances, Frost/Nixon has a multi-generational sense of sadness to it. I, for example, was too young to have seen the original Nixon interviews with David Frost air and my catharsis in watching this film is more vicarious. It is also a hopeful one, despite my feeling of once again being cheated by history. After all, it is hard for those of us who have become adults within the last decade and a half to not feel somewhat cheated watching Frost/Nixon; where is our David Frost to go after our generation's Nixon?

For other political works, please check out my reviews of:
The West Wing
All The King's Men
Elizabeth

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my movie review index page by clicking here!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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X-Men First Class Is More Than Just Great Casting!

The Good: Good acting, Great story development, Good special effects, Wonderful character development.
The Bad: Continuity, Michael Fassbender's accent.
The Basics: The prequel film X-Men: First Class is surprisingly good: smart, witty, well-performed and even better for those who are not fans of the franchise.


It has felt like a long time since I went to the movie theater and left feeling like I wanted to rave (positively) about the film I saw afterward. But that is where I am at following taking in X-Men: First Class. In fact, I enjoyed X-Men: First Class far more than I thought that I would, which is saying something. I have enjoyed the cinematic X-Men movies, but have not read any of the books, so when I write about them, all I am discussing is what is in the movies. And what was in X-Men: First Class was thoroughly enjoyable . . .

. . . except . . .

. . . in the context of the already created X-Men movies. And because I enjoyed the film so much, I've decided to dispense with the usual and leap into the worst aspects first. Quite simply, for a prequel film that begins where the first X-Men movie began and thus seeks to illustrate an important missing chapter in the history of mutants in the X-Men universe, there is a stunning lack of respect for what has come before in two key places. The first and most egregious error comes in making X-Men: First Class the entire history of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto). This is problematic - to avoid spoiling anything for anyone who has not watched the other films and who wants to essentially go into seeing X-Men: First Class blind - because Xavier is bald and with Erik when they meet Jean Grey for the first time. Given that he is not bald at the end of this movie, but the rift between the two mutant titans has come, director Matthew Vaughn shows a pretty stunning lack of understanding of the continuity already established. Furthermore, because Xavier is bald (fans will understand this is being used as a euphemism for more telling character traits!) in the Wolverine prequel, there is a rushed quality to the overall story told in X-Men: First Class.

That said, the only other problems with X-Men: First Class are that the actor playing Hank McCoy, Nicholas Hoult, has absolutely no connection or stature that would make him a reasonable precursor to Kelsey Grammar (who played the role in X-Men III: The Last Stand) and that Michael Fassbender's Irish accent comes out more and more as the movie goes on. I'm not saying that there weren't a lot of Irish Jews living in Poland in 1944, but . . . wait, I think I can safely say that. Fassbender's acting or the casting here is a little off. Regardless, X-Men: First Class deserves to be a hit and if it is at all possible to avoid seeing any previews for the film (all of which seemed to pull from the last hour to half hour of the movie, annoyingly enough), one should see it soon and on the big screen.

Starting in Poland in 1944, Erik Lehnsherr inadvertently reveals to the Nazis his extraordinary power to bend metal with only his mind. This brings him to the attention of Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt who tries to cultivate Erik's powers by killing Erik's mother in front of him. Meanwhile in Westchester at the same time, Charles Xavier walks into his kitchen and discovers his mother there, only he knows immediately it is not his mother and Raven, a shapeshifting mutant, is revealed to him. While Erik begins a search for Klaus and Charles becomes a world-renowned expert in genetics, tensions begin to rise in the world. In 1962, the CIA seeks out Charles when an agent witnesses Emma Frost and a powerful teleporting mutant she is working with abduct Colonel Hendry from a Las Vegas club.

When Charles and the CIA hunt down a vicious manipulator named Sebastian Shaw, they rescue Erik who is trying to sink Shaw's boat and desperately attempts to stop Shaw's submarine. Shaw is the man Erik knew as Schmidt and Erik's desire for vengeance leads him to an unlikely pairing with Charles. With the CIAs help, Charles, Erik and Raven are united with the brilliant mutant scientist Hank McCoy and Charles and Erik begin the search for more mutants. After finding several and encouraging them to begin honing their talents and to work for the U.S. government. This puts Xavier's mutants on Shaw's radar and puts the entire operation in jeopardy as Shaw attempts to create nuclear war through what we now call the Cuban Missile Crisis.

X-Men: First Class is incredibly clever on several levels and one of the things I enjoyed most about the film was that the previews made it appear like the actual crisis - the U.S. and U.S.S.R. squaring off over nuclear missile deployment in Cuba - was the central thrust of the film. Not so. Instead, Shaw becomes an intriguing villain who believes that a nuclear apocalypse will end human life and allow mutants to be created, spread, and/or be revealed to a world they will then dominate. His philosophy is ghastly, but it mirrors what Charles speaks about early in the film when he shares his thesis with Raven. Shaw's aid, Emma Frost, is a cool villain and the scenes she is in are electric - for more than just the costuming. Indeed, Emma is Xavier's foil as a fellow telepath and unlike Xavier, she has a secondary power, which is that she can become diamond. This is a pretty clever power and it is exceptionally well-executed with the special effects of the film.

The thrust of X-Men: First Class is in the relationship between Charles and Erik and that is where the film is very successful as well. Charles and Erik are men of about equal power, with opposing philosophies on the relationship between humanity and mutants. Their enthusiasm in hunting down mutants together is fun to watch and they interact well. Moreover, both James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have the gravitas to realistically evolve into characters played by Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen. I didn't, honestly, see the resemblance for Fassbender and McKellen until almost the very last scene, but near the climax there is a moment when Fassbender lets complete vulnerability into his eyes and in that moment, he looked like a young McKellen.

Despite the rushed plot of X-Men: First Class, the character journeys are compelling and well-executed. Xavier focuses on the betterment of mutantkind and preparing for a world where both humans and mutants may exist together. Erik, on the other hand, is focused with liberating mutants from the yoke of human oppression. Strangely, Xavier never points out to Erik that it was a mutant, not a man, who committed the worst crimes against Erik. But while Xavier philosophizes and is oblivious to advances of a fairly adult Raven, Erik tunes his anger and comes to believe that if mankind wants to wipe themselves out, he will happily help it along. How Charles and Erik then continue and evolve their relationship makes the movie more engaging as it goes on.

What also works is how the characters from the X-Men universe were selected. While I am sure there is a chronology that dictates such things, with only Xavier, Erik, Raven and Hank having been seen in prior X-Men films, there is a real sense of menace throughout the movie to other characters, like Emma Frost, Angel, Darwin, Banshee and Havoc. When Emma Frost is captured by Erik and Charles, for example, there truly is the sense that anything can happen to her and I like that. In a prequel it is hard enough to build in surprises, so that X-Men: First Class mixes it up with characters that can be casualties works.

In addition to great special effects, good plot development and good character development, the acting is pretty wonderful. I had not seen January Jones in anything outside the Jimmy Kimmel Live HoBo diet sketch, but she rules as Emma Frost. With equal grace and ability, Jennifer Lawrence recreates Raven (Mystique). Lawrence makes Raven very powerful in her convictions, but exceptionally emotionally vulnerable and the conflict is played out very well through Lawrence's performance. Indeed, it didn't occur to me until post-viewing analysis that Raven might be characterized as something of an easy mutant given that she expresses feelings for Charles, Hank and Erik. But I attribute the failure to view the character that was as an acting success on the part of Lawrence. Lawrence makes it clear that Raven's attraction to McCoy is more a transference of feelings for Charles to McCoy. Her budding romance with Erik works as a result.

Kevin Bacon makes Shaw plausible as a villain without ever appearing over-the-top.

For fans of the franchise, there are two wonderful cameos that play to the larger story of X-Men, though this was the first Marvel film I did not notice Stan Lee in. For those not invested in the franchise, there are clever tongue-in-cheek moments like when Charles unwittingly outs McCoy as a mutant to the CIA and Hank tells the director of the project, "You didn't ask, so I didn't tell." As well, there is no post-credit scene on this one. X-Men: First Class is solidly entertaining and while it is not at all perfect, it is one of the smartest super hero movies I've ever seen and so far the best movie I've seen in theaters this year.

For other X-Men films, please check out my reviews of:
X-Men
X-2: X-Men United
X-Men III: The Last Stand
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

8/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Neglected Perfection: How Bicentennial Man Was Overlooked By Audiences (Who, Hopefully, Are Smart Enough To Pick It Up Now!)

The Good: Character development, Plot development, Thematic richness, Pacing
The Bad: I could stand to have some bonus features for the DVD presentation, especially a commentary track!
The Basics: Bicentennial Man is an engaging film which illustrates well the complicated nature of freedom and humanity as a robot makes the journey from machine to man.


A few months ago, I struck upon a pretty brilliant plan. While I was comparatively debtless, I joined a movie club to stock up on gifts for my wife and that worked out great on one front. I now have a stash of gifts to filter out to her on special occasions and I am very much prepared for them. Unfortunately, I have also discovered that this makes me less attentive to the actual dates of those significant events and the first one I missed was our 25 month anniversary (it's silly, I know, but I celebrate my love for my wife every day, so once a month is not a bad thing!). To make up for it, two nights ago, I went into the box and got out the appropriate gift and presented it to her. That gift was Bicentennial Man and it was a real hit with her. She was thrilled that I had actually listened to her and had picked a gift that was truly one she wanted for her permanent collection. It was such a hit that my plans for the night were instantly disrupted and I was compelled to sit and watch it.

And I am exceptionally glad I did! Those who follow my many reviews might know that I have a profound loathing for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. I have serious issues with it and Bicentennial Man has a similar premise. Fortunately, Chris Columbus's Bicentennial Man is light years better than A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and I was left baffled at how American audiences had failed to make Bicentennial Man one of the most respected and highest grossing films of all time. So, for those going back and considering such things, I proudly add Bicentennial Man to my list of perfect films.

Bicentennial Man is an epic film and a surprisingly intimate character study, both at the same time. It is cerebral, clever and charming enough to be entertaining without being schmaltzy. It is a powerful work and while there is some simplicity in the plot development, at least for fans of science fiction, it is not unwelcome for its directness. And I appreciated that the movie never insulted my intelligence, which made me respect it more and suspect that most audiences a decade ago simply didn't "get" it. After enduring the flash and sparkle of The Matrix and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (reviewed here!) earlier that year, perhaps audiences were not prepared for anything so cerebral as Bicentennial Man. This makes the film one of the best, most neglected endeavors in cinematic history.

In 2005, the Martin family receives a robot from NorthAm Robotics, which Richard Martin thinks is a cool gift for his family. Richard treats the robot, which "Little Miss" calls Andrew, like a household appliance. The spiteful older daughter in the Martin family, Grace, encourages Andrew to throw himself out the window, an act which damages Andrew and sets him on a journey of self-actualization. While repaired physically, Andrew begins to express desires of his own. Given the task of building clocks by Richard, Amanda ("Little Miss") argues that Andrew should receive compensation for his work and over the decades Andrew achieves great wealth. Throughout her young adulthood, Amanda grows to appreciate Andrew more and more, despite the fact that he is a robot.

Decades later, Andrew purchases his freedom, gets an upgrade that allows him to be more expressive with his facial expressions and goes on a search for other NorthAm robots. Through his search, he discovers that he is unique; that most of the other NorthAm robots were used as simple tools and never evolved beyond their initial programming. Returning to the Martin family, he finds Amanda an old lady and her granddaughter Portia to be antagonistic and bearing a troubling resemblance to Amanda. Having met the descendant of one of the NorthAm designers, Rupert Burns, Andrew begins to design the means to make himself more and more human in his quest to be recognized as a true life form.

Honestly, I'm at a loss as to why this film did not do better in the theater. It is not a big special effects film, but it is deep, complex and thoroughly enjoyable. As I pointed out to my wife, I had seen the much shorter film Priest (reviewed here!) the night before, but the much longer Bicentennial Man felt much shorter! This moves along at a decent clip and there is constantly the feeling that the movie is going somewhere. In fact, the only reason I can think that fans of science fiction didn't leap upon Bicentennial Man was that they had a similar character arc in Data through the seven years of Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!).

And that is what Bicentennial Man truly is, a character study. Andrew is a viable, interesting life form and the complicated relationship he has with Amanda and then Portia is compelling to watch. His journey of self-discovery is funny and heartwrenching and it is executed on a scale that is appropriate. What makes Bicentennial Man work as well as it does is that the changes in Andrew do not happen instantly; they develop over the course of decades as the little changes - getting paid, getting actual freedom, upgrading his body - compound to have more serious consequences and reactions. This is well-illustrated in Bicentennial Man as Andrew grows through the three primary relationships: his relationships with Richard, Amanda and then Portia/Rupert. Bicentennial Man does not rush the character development and it entertains while it moves at a realistic pace.

One of the clever aspects of Bicentennial Man on the character front is how it also gets rid of the characters when they are no longer necessary. Little Miss's sister, Grace, is bratty and unpleasant and after the early scenes where she resents Andrew and then grows into a pretty skanky annoyance, she and her whole line of the Martin family disappear from the narrative.

Then there is the acting. Bicentennial Man is the Robin Williams film for anyone who does not like Robin Williams. His acting is impeccable and truly great. This is the performance of his career. His sense of comic timing is wonderful in the scenes where he must be funny and Williams actually acts because he is not performing anywhere close to his usual manic stage presence. Instead, Williams succeeds by showing amazing restraint and he embodies a truly different character from any he played before or has played since. There is not a single moment in the film where the viewer feels they are watching Robin Williams instead of Andrew.

Williams has a lot of support from an amazing cast, which includes Sam Neill in the role of Richard, which allows him to subtly develop and loosen his stiff character into one who can foster Andrew's growing ambitions. Oliver Platt enters the narrative late as Rupert and he gives his usual solid supporting performance. Even Hallie Kate Eisenberg, whose only other work I was aware of were the Pepsi commercials (she was the cute little girl in the late-'90's who would sip Pepsi and smirk in a way that was supposed to be adorable, but most of us found overplayed and annoying), is great at the young Little Miss. She nails the humanity and excitement of being a young girl and gives Embeth Davidtz - who plays both the older Amanda and Portia - a solid foundation to work from. Davidtz's performance was so good that after seeing Bicentennial Man, I wanted to see what else she has done.

The only real drawback of Bicentennial Man is that the DVD is exceptionally light on bonus features. The barebones version has a single short featurette and two previews. A film this wonderful deserves more, like a deluxe Criterion Collection treatment.

Some films are commercials flops because they are terrible movies and they deserve to be forgotten. Some movies fail because they are released at the wrong time and simply do not find their audience. Those movies often come back when they are discovered or recovered years later and amply plugged by people who point out that the movie deserves time and attention which it lacked in the initial release. Right now, I am raising my voice to say that Bicentennial Man deserves the audience is did not get before. Pick it up and watch it; you'll want to share the movie with others once you do!

For other films that ask great, existential questions, check out my reviews of:
Inception
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
The Truman Show

10/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Anne Hathaway's Breasts, Jake Gyllenhaal's Butt And A Great Story All Make Love And Other Drugs Eminently Memorable!

The Good: Acting, Characters, Story
The Bad: The final third has serious pacing issues.
The Basics: Love And Other Drugs is more than just a delightful fantasy for fans of Anne Hathaway, it is one of Edward Zwick's best works!


My wife has a real beef with me, one which put me going to the movies without her on Thanksgiving. It seems, early in our relationship two years ago, as we were courting one another, I told the woman I had just met that I had more than a little thing for Anne Hathaway. I suppose it probably happened when she tried to get me to watch Hoodwinked our first weekend together and that's when I probably said, "That would be great; I love Anne Hathaway." Ugh. That has been haunting me since and my wife is very unhappy whenever I want to see any film with Hathaway (though we made it through Alice In Wonderland together just fine earlier this year!). So, when I was taking the car today while my wife was at work, it was with disbelief she looked at me when I told her "I want to see Love And Other Drugs because I like Edward Zwick's other works!" Sure, Hathaway is a big selling point for me, but last year, Edward Zwick had a perfect film with Defiance and that type movie always gets me to go to the next film by the director.

Love And Other Drugs was on its way to hitting "perfect film" status with me as well, but then the film hits a weird wall in the final third and the pacing and plot go into a wonky, dead zone that saps the life out of it. Unfortunately, the more I consider the film, the more I am forced to confess that I have no clue how to fix the film. Honestly, Love And Other Drugs seemed like it was going the way of the charming romance and would end one of three ways: a breakup, a happy ending (until I actually heard that Maggie had Parkinson's, I thought the reference early in the film to unintended benefits to prescription drugs would yield a surprise cure for Maggie from Viagra), or the inevitable tragedy. Zwick and his co-writers, Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph, go a different way but not before dragging the audience through a more plot-predictable section that left me feeling disappointed. And believe me, that's something I never expected to say in a movie that offered me pretty much all of the Anne Hathaway I could want (at least while still being married!). Fortunately, Zwick and Hathaway (and entirely surprising for me, Jake Gyllenhaal) make a movie that is largely satisfying and is one that ought to endure through Oscar Pandering Season at the box office.

From the moment the film starts with the distinctive chords of the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes," Love And Other Drugs establishes a very firm time and place in 1996 and 1997 as Pfizer exploded its profits by releasing Viagra. The film is a Zwick/Herskovitz dramedy that utilizes many elements that viewers have come to expect from the great team. There is a lot of humor, the film is sexy as hell and the characters have more depth than most films that are under two hours long.

Jamie Randall is an electronics salesman who is exceptional with the ladies and with selling. After he has an affair with his boss's girlfriend in the store, he is fired. After a stifling dinner with his vastly more successful family, Jamie goes to work for Pfizer, selling Zoloft and Zanex to health professionals. Stuck in the mid-Ohio region, Jamie is pressured to meet near-impossible quotas under the tutelage of Bruce Winston. Jamie's big target, that can help him meet all of the quotas, is Dr. Stan Knight. After several bad attempts to get into Knight's office, Jamie succeeds and there he meets Maggie Murdock, a 26 year-old who has been suffering the onset of Stage 1 Parkinson's Disease.

Beaten up a bit by Maggie, Jamie becomes fascinated by her and organizes a date with her. Despite analyzing the meeting for exactly what it is, an attempt to hook up, Maggie goes for Jamie and soon they are frequently frolicking together. But then, Jamie manages to get exactly what he needs for his job, which is to be one of the first salespeople for Viagra. As Jamie becomes very successful, he actually falls in love with Maggie and becomes more devoted to helping her through her rough future. But Maggie does not want Jamie's love, which she mistakes as pity, and the two are cast into more turbulent emotional waters.

Love And Other Drugs is charming and surprisingly deep and much of it has to do with the casting and the direction from Edward Zwick. The story starts as very much a typical "boy meets girl" romance and frankly, Jamie is not initially likable. As well, Maggie is not terribly likable as she is angry at the world and at Jamie. She is initially characterized as deeply intelligent and self-aware and the first scene they share reminds one of the way the protagonist from The Social Network spoke. Maggie psychoanalyzes Jamie and the way he approaches all relationships. She has his number from the very beginning and from the moment they start to move toward a relationship, the viewer is rooting for them. We root for them not from a sense of artifice; not just because these are the two stars or two incredibly good-looking people, but because they have enough to bond with to start a genuine relationship. In this regard, Love And Other Drugs truly satisfies.

What is odd is how on the surface Love And Other Drugs is an indictment of Big Pharma, while it still manages to plug it. The pharmaceutical companies are taken to task for prioritizing men's erections over Parkinson's research and rightly so. In this way, Zwick continues his trend toward social commentary in his films and that succeeds wonderfully. But throughout the first half, a supplemental character is thrown in who benefits greatly from the use of Prozac, which Jamie is throwing out. So, while the movie seems to be pro-Voloft, it has a strange undertone plugging Prozac.

And as for my salacious title, yes, there is quite a bit of nudity in Love And Other Drugs. The thing is, actors and actresses frequently mention that they will only do nudity if it is germane to the story. Fortunately, if that was one of Anne Hathaway's hangups, she picked a film that starts with some of the most sensible nudity and moves onto the delightfully gratuitous. Hathaway and Zwick push nudity in the beginning as a character aspect. In fact, when Hathaway's Maggie bares her breast to Dr. Knight, she does it with a fearless quality that is absolutely indicative of her character's strength. Maggie is forthright and the way she reacts to learning Jamie is just a sales rep and not an intern, is delightful and holds up for her character. After that, there are several scenes with Jamie and Maggie in bed and those frequently lead to more character development between the two.

In fact, one of the most delightful moments of the film involves the conversation that comes when Jamie and Maggie do not have sex the first time. Sometimes, that type scene is an inevitable plot point, but in Love And Other Drugs, the scene works. Between that and the moment that Maggie demands Jamie tell her five good things about himself flesh out the two characters in ways that make viewers want to see more of them. Jamie's humanity is brought out, as well, by the way he treats his brother Josh. Josh starts with great wealth, but a severe deficiency of ambition when his marriage falls apart and Jamie takes him in.

When the movie goes into a seminar on the effects of Parkinson's Disease, Zwick scores some high emotional points, but unfortunately, after that the film falls apart. The character choices are not as compelling and I began to feel cheated. The reason my emotional reaction was so very strong was that far earlier in the film, I found myself actually caring for the characters and that is a true gift in film today.

Zwick and his team also deserve a lot of credit for the casting and the use of their actors. Anne Hathaway, despite my obvious bias toward her, is fabulous as Maggie. She is funny and heartwrenching and she is easy to watch. Her facial expressions are great as she creates Maggie as a quirky and direct character. When she has Maggie twitch from her flare-ups of Parkinson's, the viewer buys it completely. And she has great on-screen chemistry with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Gyllenhaal works some surprising magic for the viewer. If this year's Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time had him as a flat action hero who was difficult to watch for his monolithic qualities, Love And Other Drugs provides him with a rebirth for the charismatic side of the actor. Beyond his shining eyes and winning smile, Gyllenhaal is delightful with his deliveries and he plays both the fun and the strength of his character well. The serious elements of Jamie's character would not be viable were it not for Gyllenhaal's acting, but there never came a moment when he is facing Hathaway and trying to project the idea that he is a solid guy and he doesn't land it.

Zwick is also smart with the casting of the supplemental characters. Hank Azaria is solid as Dr. Knight and Zwick's use of Oliver Platt is wonderful. Indeed, one of the most wonderful, subtle moments in the film happens in the first five minutes when Jamie and Bruce are sitting side by side and we realize that Platt's Bruce is just the aged version of Jamie! That is genius casting. And even if Josh Gad just seems to be lining himself up as the next Jonah Hill, his scenes as Josh in the film are good.

Ultimately, what Love And Other Drugs has going for it is a good story, well presented with characters that endure well after the final credits roll. For all my wife's accusations that I still hold a torch for Hathaway, the strength of the film might be most in the fact that the longer I watched the film alone, the more I missed my wife and felt eager to see her again. Love And Other Drugs captures perfectly the excitement of real romance and will make one want to be with the one they love. And with rising ticket prices at the movie theaters, it is arguably the best film for adults to spend their time and money on this Oscar Pandering (or holiday) Season!

For works featuring Anne Hathaway, please check out my reviews of:
Anne Hathaway For Wonder Woman!
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap!
Valentine's Day
Twelfth Night Soundtrack
Rachel Getting Married
Passengers
The Princess Diaries

8.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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