Scripts or pecs?
Movies from seen in mid 2004.
Originally written: June 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Cooler
Troy
The northern summer season of big budget action adventures has arrived and already here or on the horizon are retellings of classic myths (Troy); re-imaginings of established stories (Van Helsing); a plethora of comic heroes, either for the first time or in sequels (Catwoman, Spiderman et bloody cetera); the usual rash of sequels to even marginally successful earlier films (Shrek II, a Pitch Black sequel and so on); remakes of early television shows (Thunderbirds, among others); more than a few flicks aimed at low teen and sub-teen girls (Mean Girls is one that comes to mind); and a couple of high concept movies (Alex Proyas' version of I, Robot with Will Smith in the lead - but not as Susan Calvin). There are even a movies few left over from last year or the northern spring that are character or script driven and the promise, if it gets a distributor, of a new Michael Moore doco, this one looking at the Bushies and 11/9. Even so, it has been a slow start with no stand-out hit as yet. Our pre-trip movie-going has concentrated on the character-driven small movies, and one bug-fuck epic.
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Charlie Kaufman seems obsessed with the legend of Heloise and Abelard, whose forbidden love was one of the staples of medieval literature. In his first script, Being John Malkovich, the legend is played out in puppets; in Adaptation, the thematic concerns are replicated; and in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the title is taken from an Alexander Pope poem about the affair. There is another resonance, a reflection of how Hollywood suddenly seems to have contemporaneous, similar ideas - like two movies about asteroid/meteor impact with Earth; or two movies about Elizabethan England; or two it's-all-a-virtual-reality-to-lull-us-into-serving-the-aliens/computers movies. Just lastish I was reviewing a dire Ben Affleck flick (I just realised how redundant "dire" is in that phrase), Paycheck. It was about memory erasure. ESotSM (which gets close to the worst title in some time) has many of the same thematic elements. It starts with Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meeting cute with Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) on a train and spending a day at the beach with him. Then in a series of flash-backs, flash-forwards, and other time-bending techniques, the back story is filled in. Because his lover, Clementine, has had him erased from her memory, Joel visits Lacuna Inc to have the vice versaed. There he meets Dr Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his crew who begin the operations, only to meet resistance as Joel's subconscious decides it wants to retain some of the memories. The visual metaphors used for such memories and the way Kaufman's script explores the interaction of Joel, Clementine, Mierzwiak (actually in comparison to the characters' names, the film's title is not all that outre) and Lacuna's other employees (Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Woods, each in effective bit parts) through overlapping times and narratives makes for a thoughtful and interesting take on memory erasure and its implications. This is a major difference between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Paycheck. Just as the script is literate, so the acting is a cut above. Carrey has been establishing a side business in serious character studies: in The Truman Show, The Majestic and Bruce Almighty. This advance in acting from his earlier crude comedic roots is amplified in this film. He really makes Joel a lonely man whose need for love makes him somewhat desperate. When he has the sparkling Clementine, he grows in reflection of her; in her absence, he shrinks back into smallness. Winslet is an apt counterpoint to Carrey. Her portrayal of the exuberant Clementine is pitch perfect. Wood's against type creep and Dunst's naif (who's not quite as naive as expected) complement the leads very well. Joel asks his doctor if the technique can lead to brain damage: "It is brain damage!" he is told. Where Paycheck went for the action, ESofSM actually explores some of the philosophical questions about memory erasure therapy, in an entertaining, and not in a didactic, way. Charlie Kaufman again demonstrates that the well-written script is the bedrock of a good movie and not all speculative fiction needs to be written from within the ghetto. This one is well worth a squizz.
Lucky unlucky in love
Based on reviews I'd seen from the States and Alec Baldwin's Oscar nomination, I have been looking forward to The Cooler, Wayne Kramer's break-through feature. Set in Las Vegas, the story centres on the eponymous character Bernie Lootz (William H Macy), a down-on-his-luck conman reduced to being the bad luck symbol of the last of the old-time casinos, the Shangri-La. His luck is so bad that he is able to bring down winners, helping the casino make a larger profit. He has a questionable relationship with Shelly Kaplow (Baldwin), the sentimental but old-fashionedly thuggish casino manager. In response to a debt Shelly had broken Bernie's leg, leaving him with a permanent limp and then enlisted him as his casino's 'cooler'. As the movie starts, Bernie has a week left on his agreement. The film has two main story arcs: Bernie's burgeoning love for and with a Shangri-La waitress Natalie (Maria Bello) and Shelly's confrontation with the boys from back East who want to modernise the casino. These plots are complicated by the arrival of Bernie's estranged son with his pregnant girl-friend and Shelly's dealings with Buddy, the ageing singer who is the casino's headline lounge act. The thing is that the script, the acting and the direction are all top rank here. The characters seem like they might be off-putting but Bernie and Natalie prove an interesting and sympathetic couple. Macy is able to find a handle on Bernie, despite his initial persona, down at heel and down in the mouth; but that is to be expected from his track record. Bello has been in a few featured parts, mainly in second-rate movies, so to see her emerge in this part in a role that really deserved recognition from the various awards bodies (she was nominated for a Golden Globe) is worth noting. Her spirit shines through in the role which could easily have been cliched. She is something more than the whore-with-a-heart-of-gold, just as Bernie is something more than the poor-schmuck-loser. But Baldwin's is the performance of the movie and personifies many of the contradictions inherent in the film. For all that it is essentially a feel-good movie built around Bernie's rediscovery of his mojo, the film is also about Shelly's decline and fall as the 'new' Vegas catches up with him and his old Vegas values. It is worth noting in passing - as many reviewers have not - that the film features sex scenes, although they are much more realistic and touching than is the norm, a fair amount of confronting violence and some quite frank language. For all that, The Cooler is one of those 'small' movies which the afficianados will talk about when they discuss cult movies but which most movie watchers will never see. I can only suggest that if you enjoy well-written character-driven dramas, with a bit of humor and a lot of soul, this is a film for you.
Troy, Troy, Troy again
The sound you hear is the sound of poor, blind Homer revolving in his grave (or tholos tomb). Given that I spent much hot-air defending Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, arguing that it was a film version and must necessarily be different from the book, it might appear strange that I am about to unload on the adapters of The Iliad, now playing as Troy. What they have done to Homer's tale of rage and hubris is more tragic than the tale itself. (I know that there are a multiplicity of versions of the Trojan war and that Homer's is but one. However, the film-makers say that their version is derived from The Iliad so some semblance of resemblance is required.) Let me give you just a sample of what's missing or different: no gods and no Golden Apple (so the genesis of the war is necessarily different); no invulnerability for Achilles (and thus no significance of his ankle); Agamemnon becomes a proto-Alexander with dreams of pan-Hellenic hegemony; Priam (pronounced 'Pree-am' throughout) has two sons but seems to have lost his wives (the script-writer is at one with the Player from Hamlet: What is he to Hecuba and Hecuba to him?), concubines, 20 or so daughters, including Cassandra, who I really missed, and most of his 50 sons; Patroclus (pronounced 'Pat-ro-clus', with an emphasis on the first syllable) becomes Achilles' protege, rather than lover; the war lasts a couple of weeks, rather than 10 years; Menelaus (pronounced 'Menelouse') dies in the first major battle of the war and Agamemnon in the last (leaving life less complex for Elektra); and so on ad fininitum. But the worst changes are around the two central duels in the myth: between Paris and Menelaus (pronounced 'Menelouse'), in which Paris is given very short rations, and between Achilles and Hector, still caused by Patroclus' untimely death, which is changed to elevate Hector's heroism at the expense of the far more interesting Homeric version. So they've fucked up the story. "Does the resulting film work?" I hear you ask. Well, unsurprisingly enough it does not for much of the time. But it has its moments. Brad Pitt is not one of them. While physically OK in the role of the mighty Achilles, even in the action scenes, he has none of the presence needed for the moodiness and rage of the hero. His analog on the other team is Hector, played by Eric Bana, who made his reputation in Australia as a lightweight comedian before his role as "Chopper" Reed gave him some status as an actor. Through a number of parts in US movies he has established something of a presence and, while not quite in the top range of movie actors as yet, he can mostly hold his own. Certainly when the competition is Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom, who plays the petulant Paris, Helen's Trojan toyboy. Bloom is one of the two tLotR alumni in the cast; Sean Penn is cast here as the crafty Odysseus and he, together with Brian Cox as the unbelievably ambitious Agamemnon, keep the Greek end up. Peter O'Toole is undoubtedly the best thing about the movie. His Priam (pronounced 'Pree-am') is a great performance. It is particularly good in the scene where the Trojan king turns up in Achilles' tent in the middle of the Greek camp to claim the body of his son, Hector, although he has to do it without the aid of the gods in this atheistic version. Poor Brad Pitt. Having been out-acted in the pre-fight scene by Eric Bana, he has to now contend with the great movie actor of the last fifty years. And O'Toole is given perhaps the best lines and the best scene in the whole movie - a moving portrayal of a bereft parent who also happens to be the king of the unconquered city which is being besieged. At the end of the scene Achilles appears visibly moved - a reflection I imagine of Pitt's realisation that he has just seen acting the mere shadow of which he will never be capable.
As for the film itself. Apart from wrecking any minor sense that may have existed in the original epic by trying to contemporise (and de-theise) it, the film-makers have welded on a set of love stories. Of these stories, Paris and Helen get the shortest shrift. The marriage of Hector and Andromache is contrasted with Achilles new-found love for Briseis, the priestess of Apollo. The latter is an interesting character, amalgamating parts of Briseis (not a priestess, or a relative of Priam, in the original epic) and of Polyxena, with whom Achilles falls in love in some versions of the myth. And Rose Byrne is very good in the part. So Achilles' snit is partly about love but the war becomes a geo-political battle, thereby neatly reversing Homer. The battle scenes, the CGI armies and the individual combats are quite well done and I really like how they made the wooden horse: it really looks like driftwood, or the remains of wrecked boats was used. There is also some effective thesping in featured roles including, among those not already mentioned, Nigel Terry's archpriest of Apollo. Generally, Brad aside, it's hard to be overly critical of the acting; the fault is in the writing. The Harvard Golden Pudding Club used to give, among its annual satirical commendations, the Please-Don't-Put-Us-Through-DeMille-Again Award, for outstanding non-achievement in epic film-making. Troy is a worthy contender for the award.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]