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Reviews
Finding Neverland (2004)
Dedicated performances can't turn this one around
MINOR SPOILERS
Unfortunately, neither Johnny Depp's great talent nor the dedication of each and every actor and actress in this film prevent it from becoming sticky, sentimental, and slickly packaged. The one credit I'll give this film up front is that it tells the public that Barrie was not a pedophile. This is happy news for those of us who believe he wasn't. However, the film fails in three major ways, only one of which is related to historical accuracy. 1. Let's get the historical notes out of the way first. Certainly this film is not intended to be a biopic, and I think the film makers were fairly clear about this. That said, as any kind of portrayal of J. M. Barrie, the film certainly fails, for there are so many glaring inaccuracies in it that one really can't say it's about J. M. Barrie; it doesn't make sense to waste the space listing all of the reasons why. Pick up a copy of A. Birkin's biography of Barrie, "J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys," to see what I'm talking about. Birkin combines Barrie's notes, letters, and photographs with the correspondence and photographs of others, as well as with historical facts, to give a picture of who Barrie really was and how his relationships with the Davies family worked. It's a fascinating read.
2. Even if one moves beyond the historical faults of Finding Neverland, the film fails also as an exploration of what would compel an individual, particularly the main character of Finding Neverland, to create a work like Peter Pan. The problem, I think, is that the film portrays the Peter Pan story as a jolly little tale by a jolly little man. I'll agree with a healthy amount of literary criticism here: My own reading of the Peter Pan play, novel, prequel (Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens), and Barrie's early movie treatment reveal to me a story that is tremendously entertaining but also tremendously terrifying.
Barrie's "terrifying masterpiece," as Peter Davies so well termed it, is permeated with anxiety. Most people recognize its well-known anxiety about growing up, but you don't have to peel back many layers of the play or novel to see conflicts between the Victorian ideal of the virtuous Mother and the fact that mothers have sex to become mothers. Both the play and novel also express anxiety about gender and gender roles, sexuality, unfulfilled desire, abandonment, death, and confusion over self-identity.
So it's difficult to believe that the playful, dapper man that the screenplay and Depp give us, despite the difficulties in his life, could create a work as troubling as Peter Pan. In fact, that sort of man didn't create Peter Pan. The man who created Peter Pan was extraordinarily imaginative but also conflicted, anxious, and really quite grim. He was a man who wanted not only to be a boy but even more so to be a mother of boys. This isn't very palatable to the movie-going public, but it's a more credible personality for the creator of Peter Pan.
Because the film simplifies both the Peter Pan play and Barrie himself, it doesn't create a believable picture of what type of person could create Peter Pan.
3. Thus, the best way to take this film is as an exploration of the creative process. In this respect the film draws some decent connections between its "Barrie," his life, and his work. Thus my three stars. However, the script is so contrived, so formulated to draw tears and laughs from the audience, that it either distracts one from, or lessens the impact of, this exploration. And because the film contains so many inaccuracies, we can't get the clearer, and more colorful, picture of how Barrie took the events and people from his life to create Peter Pan.
Ironically, if this film had stuck to history, or had at least given its "Barrie" and his creation more complexity, the resulting story would have been much more poignant without the need for a formulated script. The historical Barrie's involvement with Mr. and Mrs. Davies and their children is a powerful, moving, and often very sad tale of love, loss, conflict, and creation. It's lamentable that this film couldn't keep pace with the true story.
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
The Devil ought to sue
Many people really enjoyed this movie, but I have to admit (in rather flaky terms) that I'm the Devil's advocate regarding this.
"The Devil's Advocate" is OK. Actually, it was pretty campy. Some parts of it were so campy that they were sad. "Advocate" attempts to examine lofty material such as instinct versus ethics and free will, but it never reaches its goal. The material is discussed, but it's discussed so clumsily, so abruptly, and so flimsily, that the discussions seem more like an attempt to convince the viewer that this isn't really a slasher flick - that it's really a sophisticated film. Well, it's really a poor amalgamation of thriller, slasher flick, and comedy-drama.
As for Al Pacino's highly-praised performance, it's pretty neat - all 30 minutes of it. It's also neat as long as you consider that Al Pacino was really playing Al Pacino. The female performers were extremely annoying. Charlize Theron, who played Kevin Lomax's (Keanu Reeves) wife, doesn't do much besides scream, whine, and take her clothes off. Otherwise, there's a lot of lesbian-like activity between supporting characters who don't do much besides sneer and touch each other's breasts. Keanu Reeves' performance is very good, but his accent really gets in the way. It's difficult to take seriously someone whose accent is not only not real but sounds like a cross between "In the Heat of the Night" and "Deliverance." This is not Reeves' fault; it's the director's fault. Not every southerner, certainly not every Floridian, has a southern accent. Why does Kevin Lomax need one?
I do give this movie credit for a great monologue (spoken by Al Pacino), interesting special effects (although not always the top of the line), and a surprise ending.
If you're terribly bored one evening and there's nothing good on TV, this is a night's entertainment. Even the Devil might get a kick out of it.
The Party (1968)
Humor and critique
The Party offers a remarkably skillful blend of humor and critique. I'd like to offer a somewhat serious but very informal observation of this very clever, funny movie. We've got a non-Westerner (Hrundi Bakshi, played by Peter Sellers) trying desperately to fit into American culture. We've also got a young French woman (Michele Monet, played by Claudine Longet), who is also trying to fit in. Neither of them like or understand what they see. Hrundi seems incompetent, but when he's not bending to American society we recognize that he's really intelligent, intuitive, funny, and caring.
As Hrundi wends his way through the hosts' gigantic house, he observes the pitfalls of the American way: drugs, alcoholism, greed, deceit, vanity, materialism, sexism, and racism, to name a few. He also observes societal constraints. Michele sees these things too, and she is also the target of sexism and even, perhaps, of misogyny (her date tries to force himself on her and, later, demands that she leave with him or lose any chance of a film career). They interact with people who think they know who they are but, as Hrundi infers, don't really know who they are.
The climax occurs when Hrundi demands that the hosts' daughter and her friends wash an elephant they have ignominiously painted (a representation of ideological protest gone wrong, since it's more for entertainment than for anything else). When they start washing, the party turns into a real party. Social lines are blurred as people in different social levels are equalized, for example, when some of the housekeeping staff joins the party. Constraints and boundaries are laid aside and forgotten. The American guests, a group of Russian entertainers, Hrundi, and Michele all join in and have fun together. Not everyone joins the party; the older Americans refuse to participate. But we get the idea that they and their ideals have been vanquished.
In the end of the movie, we get a strong and uplifting suggestion that Hrundi and Michele are going to be spending more time together.
Subtle humor, clever slapstick, romance, and serious issues -- The Party has them all in good abundance. The best aspect of this movie, however, is that it examines serious themes through masterful,unrelenting humor.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
Complex and complete
"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is concerned with two related themes: people who, for various reasons, are marginalized by society (i.e. people who are deformed, very overweight, depressed, retarded, poor, etc); and people who allow the problems or animosity of other individuals to trap them, and who limit their own lives because of that. Gilbert is an intelligent, emotional, conflicted, and introverted young man who lives with his two sisters, one retarded brother (Leonardo deCaprio), and a morbidly obese mother in a shaky old farm house. Gilbert's mother used to be beautiful and energetic. When her depressed husband committed suicide, she ate herself into becoming morbidly obese. She confines herself to the house and, in fact, confines herself to the sofa on the first floor. She's a burden and an embarrassment for her children, especially for Gilbert. Still, Gilbert loves and cares for her. She's also a joke for the local townspeople, which is an even more painful situation for the sensitive Gilbert. Gilbert's beloved younger brother is also a burden. Although he can communicate and is sympathetic to the feelings of others, he can barely take care of himself. He is also a source of amusement for, and sometimes a victim of violence from, the townspeople. The three major characters, the mother, Gilbert, and the vivacious young woman who breathes life into him (Juliette Lewis), represent the film's thematic conclusions. The mother's problem is her self-confinement, her emotional suicide, in the wake of her husband's death. She allows his incompetence to confine her emotionally and physically, and she allows society, embodied by the townspeople, to marginalize and dehumanize her. What's eating Gilbert is his inner conflict, his desire to leave family problems forever versus his commitment to remain and take care of the family. Gilbert must decide, with the young woman's help, to what extent he will allow his relatives, especially his mother and brother, to limit his life. He must also learn to accept, however, that he cannot and should not entirely escape from his family's difficult situation. "Gilbert Grape" is a strange but excellent film, and I highly recommend it.