Ron Rifkin reprises his award-winning stage turn as an embattled publisher in a fine screen adaptation of Jon Robin Baitz's "The Substance of Fire".
Released for a one-week Academy qualifying engagement in Los Angeles and New York (it will be officially launched on Feb. 7), the film delivers Rifkin's tricky performance intact and offers solid work from an ensemble including Tony Goldwyn, Sarah Jessica Parker and Timothy Hutton.
While "Substance" arrives with a built-in awareness factor for the theater crowd, the piece has been considerably reconceptualized for the screen, and its even stronger portrait of a family torn apart makes for newly powerful viewing.
Rifkin treads a very fine line between pathos and disdain as the widowed Isaac Geldhart, a caustic New York literary publisher with three grown children. A Holocaust survivor (as a child, he was hidden by cousins while his immediate family was taken away), Isaac attempts to assuage a lifetime of guilt by undertaking the prestige printing of a four-volume documentation of Nazi medical experiments.
The problem is that the publishing house he ran with his late wife is already in serious financial trouble, and his son, Aaron (Tony Goldwyn), a partner in the company, would rather he publish a potential best seller that happens to have been written by his boyfriend (Gil Bellows). But the elder Geldhart remains adamant to the point of firing Aaron and consequently disowning his other two children -- timid landscape architecture teacher Martin (Hutton) and energetic kids show performer Sarah (Parker).
Although his offspring would go on to have the last laugh -- the potential best seller more than lives up to Aaron's hunch, while the costly Nazi atrocity books drive Isaac to professional and emotional ruin -- a tragedy occurs that ultimately and literally brings the father back to his senses and his splintered family together.
In turning his Obie Award-winning play into a screenplay, Baitz has done some significant structural renovating, resulting in a more focused, moving central theme. Theater director Daniel Sullivan, who also handled the original stage version, makes an impressive feature film debut, managing to avoid most of the static trappings of stage-to-screen vehicles.
But it is the cast that shines brightest. Rifkin's notable balancing act aside, Baitz's words and Sullivan's direction coax strong performances from Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, as well as a quietly affecting turn by Elizabeth Franz as Geldhart's loyal, long-suffering secretary.
THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE
Miramax Films
Director Daniel Sullivan
Screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz
Producers Jon Robin Baitz, Randy Finch,
Ron Kastner
Director of photography Robert Yeoman
Production design John Lee Beatty
Editor Pamela Martin
Music Joseph Vitarelli
Costume design Jess Goldstein
Casting Meg Simon
Color/stereo
Cast:
Isaac Geldhart Ron Rifkin
Sarah Geldhart Sarah Jessica Parker
Martin Geldhart Timothy Hutton
Aaron Geldhart Tony Goldwyn
Louis Foukold Ronny Graham
Val Gil Bellows
Gene Byck Eric Bogosian
Max Roger Rees
Ms. Barzakian Elizabeth Franz
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Released for a one-week Academy qualifying engagement in Los Angeles and New York (it will be officially launched on Feb. 7), the film delivers Rifkin's tricky performance intact and offers solid work from an ensemble including Tony Goldwyn, Sarah Jessica Parker and Timothy Hutton.
While "Substance" arrives with a built-in awareness factor for the theater crowd, the piece has been considerably reconceptualized for the screen, and its even stronger portrait of a family torn apart makes for newly powerful viewing.
Rifkin treads a very fine line between pathos and disdain as the widowed Isaac Geldhart, a caustic New York literary publisher with three grown children. A Holocaust survivor (as a child, he was hidden by cousins while his immediate family was taken away), Isaac attempts to assuage a lifetime of guilt by undertaking the prestige printing of a four-volume documentation of Nazi medical experiments.
The problem is that the publishing house he ran with his late wife is already in serious financial trouble, and his son, Aaron (Tony Goldwyn), a partner in the company, would rather he publish a potential best seller that happens to have been written by his boyfriend (Gil Bellows). But the elder Geldhart remains adamant to the point of firing Aaron and consequently disowning his other two children -- timid landscape architecture teacher Martin (Hutton) and energetic kids show performer Sarah (Parker).
Although his offspring would go on to have the last laugh -- the potential best seller more than lives up to Aaron's hunch, while the costly Nazi atrocity books drive Isaac to professional and emotional ruin -- a tragedy occurs that ultimately and literally brings the father back to his senses and his splintered family together.
In turning his Obie Award-winning play into a screenplay, Baitz has done some significant structural renovating, resulting in a more focused, moving central theme. Theater director Daniel Sullivan, who also handled the original stage version, makes an impressive feature film debut, managing to avoid most of the static trappings of stage-to-screen vehicles.
But it is the cast that shines brightest. Rifkin's notable balancing act aside, Baitz's words and Sullivan's direction coax strong performances from Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, as well as a quietly affecting turn by Elizabeth Franz as Geldhart's loyal, long-suffering secretary.
THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE
Miramax Films
Director Daniel Sullivan
Screenwriter Jon Robin Baitz
Producers Jon Robin Baitz, Randy Finch,
Ron Kastner
Director of photography Robert Yeoman
Production design John Lee Beatty
Editor Pamela Martin
Music Joseph Vitarelli
Costume design Jess Goldstein
Casting Meg Simon
Color/stereo
Cast:
Isaac Geldhart Ron Rifkin
Sarah Geldhart Sarah Jessica Parker
Martin Geldhart Timothy Hutton
Aaron Geldhart Tony Goldwyn
Louis Foukold Ronny Graham
Val Gil Bellows
Gene Byck Eric Bogosian
Max Roger Rees
Ms. Barzakian Elizabeth Franz
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 12/8/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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