Friday, June 5, 1998
Screenscene
FILM
"A Perfect Murder"
Directed by Andrew Davis
Starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow
"A Perfect Murder" is a surprisingly sharp psychological
thriller, using its predecessor, Hitchcock’s "Dial M for Murder,"
as a blueprint for exceptionally witty dialogue and high dramatic
tension. Touted as a remake of the 1954 classic, "Perfect" seems to
poke fun at itself with every predictable plot twist.
The film’s cinematography is crisp, editing fast paced and
characters are all stereotypically cool. It seems as if the
director followed Hitchcock’s lead by planning out every shot
before they even started shooting.
As in Michael Douglas’ last adventure "The Game," the film’s
power is in its simplicity. Limiting this game’s key players to
three, the film creates a neo-Sartrean world of paranoia and
claustrophobia in which one can’t escape from anything. The film is
essentially a series of "mindfucks," as one of the characters calls
it, and well … the other kind, too. But, surprisingly, Douglas
relinquishes his perennial role of nympho to become the guy that
ain’t getting any.
He stars as Steven Taylor, exploiting his obvious talent and
experience in the genre. He plays a high-stakes businessman, whose
desire for revenge is only surpassed by his lust for money. Gwyneth
Paltrow is his wife, Emily, a woman torn between love and honor.
Paltrow, who has carved a name for herself as a femme fatale for
the nineties through strong performances in "Sliding Doors" and
"Hard Eight," gives Emily the depth that Princess Grace Kelly
couldn’t in the original. Viggo Mortensen turns in an especially
ardent and comical performance as Emily’s scheming lover. In
planning for her murder, he asks Steven, "Do I keep fucking your
wife in the meantime?"
While both films maintain a high level of suspense with their
continuous use of the telephone, this remake departs from the
original by updating the "dial" to redial. When Steven sees that
Emily has called her lover from her bed, he picks up the phone and
redials David to give him a piece of his mind. It’s these quirky
inside jokes to the original that makes this film more than just
another Douglas thriller or a forgettable summer remake.
If the film does well, look for a Hitchcock revival in
Hollywood. With the 1996 re-release of "Vertigo," and the buzz
about the "Psycho" and "Rear Window" remakes, theatres could be
invaded by the master of suspense again.
Bill Weesner
Grade: B+
"Mr. Jealousy"
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Starring Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra and Chris Eigeman
Keep your eyes peeled for the name Noah Baumbach. He’s this
hilarious director who has these characters who are sort of like
Whit Stillman’s buzzing WASPs, except they’re intelligent without
being intellectuals, and they’re not anachronisms (in fact, they’re
friggin’ terrifying because we bump into them everyday, sometimes
in our own bathroom mirrors). His knock-out debut film, "Kicking
and Screaming," which should be required viewing for every
graduating college student, is the kind of cooly alert college-pop
kvetching which brings a sense of beauty and romance to our
generation’s trivial doom.
Oh, and this Mr. Jealousy guy – he’s a crack up too. His name is
Lester Grimm, an aspiring unemployed writer type played by the
increasingly charming Eric Stoltz. Ever since he caught his
15-year-old girlfriend making out with a 24-year-old club promoter
(oh, by the way, Lester was 15 at the time too), Lester has
acquired an endearing little complex – one that compels him to
disguise his identity and join the therapy group of Dashiell Frank
(all hail Chris Eigeman), a novelist of the month and the
ex-boyfriend of Ramona (Annabella Sciorra), who’s Lester’s weirdo
girlfriend.
"The reason why I’m afraid of airplanes," this one woman tells
the therapy group, "is because they’re like erections, both going
up mysteriously," – OK, that was random – just thought you might
find that funny.
Anyhoo, Lester gets advice from pal Vince (Carlos Jacott) on how
to teach his green-eyed monster to do other wacky tricks. Vince has
his own cuddly neurosis: after debating over coffee about whether
people still spit into cream pitchers, he admonishes, "You and your
sheltered lives, why wouldn’t they spit in the cream?"
Anyhoo, Lester’s shenanigans finally go a bit overboard, leaving
him to confront every person he’s stalked, including himself.
Sadly, he becomes the thing he hates most in life: one of Ramona’s
ex-boyfriends.
One of the summer’s liveliest treats.
Tommy Nguyen
Grade: A
"The Truman Show"
Directed by Peter Weir
Starring Jim Carrey
How to begin an explanation of "The Truman Show"? The truth is
that the film, one of the most enjoyable outings of the past few
years, defies just about any possible summarization. Screenwriter
Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir have constructed such a
clearly defined, imaginative universe that any description is
likely to give away one of the fascinating twists enclosed in the
carefully woven fantasy.
However, a review cannot be written without some basic
information about the film. In short, a 24-hour-a-day,
7-days-a-week television program, "The Truman Show," follows Truman
Burbank (Carrey), a sort of everyman living in a pleasant island
community.
The catch is that Truman’s entire life is fictional: everyone he
deals with is an actor with scripted lines and the town in which he
lives is really just an enormous soundstage. Everyone in the entire
world is aware of Truman’s make-believe universe, except Truman
himself.
Of course, the movie is much more complex and elaborate. Niccol,
who proved his ability to create fantasy worlds in last year’s
under-appreciated "Gattaca," has not just written an amusing and
somewhat scary morality tale. He has constructed a fully realized
world which is not possible, but is believable enough to affect its
audience. Just as the people of the film are riveted to "The Truman
Show," so is the film’s audience absolutely glued to the screen,
totally immersed in Niccol’s incredibly creative vision.
Perhaps the film’s greatest achievement is its tremendous
attention to detail. It not only describes the operations of "The
Truman Show," but explains exactly how such a program could be
created, down to the smallest detail. Among the minutiae explained
are how the show is funded, where the director and his staff run
the inner workings of the show from and even where the cameras
which film Truman’s every action are located.
It would be easy for acting to get lost in such a
heavily-plotted film, and some characters do come off as rather
thin. However, Carrey and Ed Harris (who portrays "Truman Show"
director Christof) deliver very strong performances that shine
through the twists and turns.
Harris’ intense Christof cannot be categorized as either a
visionary or a villain. Carrey, despite his reputation for goofy,
slapstick comedies, delivers his finest performance ever, giving
Truman a real sense of humanity and compassion.
"The Truman Show" will almost certainly stand out as the year’s
most creative and inventive film, capable of being funny and
thought-provoking simultaneously. A non-stop barrage of insights
and innovations, "The Truman Show" is the film to watch this
summer.
Lonnie Harris
Grade: A
"Insomnia"
Directed by Erik Skjoldbjaerg
Starring Stellan Skarsgard
Erik Skjoldbjaerg’s (thank God I work in print) crime thriller
"Insomnia" has such an assured sense of atmosphere and pacing – the
story’s psychological shadows gradually creep up on you like a
maniacally seductive stalker – that it’s remarkable that this is
the director first feature film.
His American style of noir imagination has been carefully
realized through a European’s mature regard for the complicated,
fluid oppositions which operate in seemingly ordinary lives. And
the film finds darkness not from the genre’s usual stylistics, but
from the blinding glare of light reflecting off ice – pervasive
under Norway’s midnight sun, which deprives the guilt-ridden of
their hideaway in sleep.
The slow wrecking is done on the face of Jonas Engstrom (Stellan
Skarsgard of "Breaking the Waves" and "Good Will Hunting"), a
police investigator who hasn’t been sleeping for another good
reason: assigned to a case involving a murdered 15-year-old girl,
Jonas accidentally shoots a fellow cop during a chase for the
suspected murderer (Bjorn Floberg). He lies to his superiors about
the incident, blaming his friend’s death on the assailant who got
away. Jonas begins to close in on the child’s murderer, but the man
has something on Jonas: he knows about Jonas’ gross negligence
because he was there.
The two then conspire to help one another in getting out of the
mess; Jonas even frames the young former boyfriend of the
unfortunate girl. But this is no less the Scandinavia of Bergman,
Ibsen and Kirkegaard, and so Jonas starts to move like a
sleepwalker through his Faustian spiral, his macabre sins
descending along with him down the staircase to meet the bleakest
ambiguities of one’s time and place in this life.
Tommy Nguyen
Grade: B+
Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortenson, and Michael Douglas star in
the psychological suspense thriller
"A Perfect Murder."