What we have here is a failure to write well. While I never read the Philip Roth novel on which this movie is based, I presume that it has some depth to make the story work. The movie, however, miserably fails to provide the viewer with anything human to warm up to, let alone feel its stain after the picture is over. Nicholas Meyer, who has not yet produced one worthwhile screenplay in his career (by that, I mean one in which his characters are not bearers of some social message) presents us with another psuedo-intellectual attempt at creating an aura of humanity.
Benton, who can, with the right actors (meaning stellar giants who ignore his direction like Dustin Hoffman and Paul Newman)pull off a good job, e.g. KRAMER vs KRAMER and NOBODY'S FOOL, doesn't have actors that are capable of doing the job on their own. Anthony Hopkins isn't bad. Nor is Gary Sinise. But Ed Harris overacts and I don't quite know what Nicole Kidman did. I heard one critic saying it was bad casting. But, let's get real here, it's really Benton's fault for being unable to translate the printed page to the screen. While some of the greatest directors have started as writers who made their material shine once directing (such as Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder), Benton is an example of a talented writer who doesn't have the overall sense of visual detail that's necessary to direct. He has no timing. His movies are badly cut, uneven visually and in the performances.
But let me not tear apart Benton and Meyer alone, the picture editor and composer both failed in their own right. The picture editor, Christopher Tellefsen, was either being mistakenly dutiful to the director and the composer, Rachel Portman, was simply bad.
And finally, we should not ignore the fact that the re-recording mixers were sloppy (or maybe, there were no sound effects of backgrounds in the movie at all).
Benton, who can, with the right actors (meaning stellar giants who ignore his direction like Dustin Hoffman and Paul Newman)pull off a good job, e.g. KRAMER vs KRAMER and NOBODY'S FOOL, doesn't have actors that are capable of doing the job on their own. Anthony Hopkins isn't bad. Nor is Gary Sinise. But Ed Harris overacts and I don't quite know what Nicole Kidman did. I heard one critic saying it was bad casting. But, let's get real here, it's really Benton's fault for being unable to translate the printed page to the screen. While some of the greatest directors have started as writers who made their material shine once directing (such as Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder), Benton is an example of a talented writer who doesn't have the overall sense of visual detail that's necessary to direct. He has no timing. His movies are badly cut, uneven visually and in the performances.
But let me not tear apart Benton and Meyer alone, the picture editor and composer both failed in their own right. The picture editor, Christopher Tellefsen, was either being mistakenly dutiful to the director and the composer, Rachel Portman, was simply bad.
And finally, we should not ignore the fact that the re-recording mixers were sloppy (or maybe, there were no sound effects of backgrounds in the movie at all).