Reviews

***Spoilers not as to particular espiodes, but to the formula***

Over the last few years we in the UK have learnt that that indiscriminate shagging abounds in several professions. Nursing ("No Angels"), Teaching ("Teachers"), anything to do with airlines ("Mile High"), footie ("Dream Team," "Footballers Wives") - wherever you work, your sex life is soon to be televised.

No we learn that plastic surgeons shag a lot, too. Thanks, Nip/Tuck for clearing that up.

While most of the series named above at least do not pretend they're driven by storylines more meaningful than "Will they or won't they?" and "Will the husband/wife/lover find out?," Nip/Tuck has far higher aspirations.

And falls flat on its face.

"Beauty is only skin deep." "Physical perfection is no guarantee of happiness." "Your actions say more about you as a person than your looks." Prepare to have these and platitudes like them extrooooded before you like particularly unyielding dough out of a malfunctioning pasta machine (there's more poetry in this image which I nicked from a source not to be disclosed than in any episode of Nip/Tuck I have seen).

It's so laboured it perhaps could be funny - if half of you wasn't thinking about what a great black comedy a more gifted writing team could have come up with in the inherently ridiculous field of cosmetic "enhancement." There is no legitimate reason to advertise this with a comparison to "Six Feet Under" - the reference to that series got me to watch an episode or two of Nip/Tuck only to give up in disgust. I have had look-ins since, and it has remained at the same pedestrian, gratuitous, run of the mill level it has started out on.

Oh, and there are a few graphic shots of operations in every episode. What's that? Telling us that operating is no light matter? Subtlety, oh why hast though forsaken us?

!!!Spoilers aplenty!!!

Since Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" is set in the time of de Laclos' Text, unlike e.g. "Cruel Intentions," it is important to note that the novel as a thinly disguised attack on the Ancien Regime - hence no redemption is possible, the end in death a necessity.

The narrative relying far more on dialogue than action, I think Stephen Frears made the right choice in not "speeding up" the piece by frequent cutting. The pace at which the cabal develops is leisurely going towards slow, but I think that is advantageous. This is because its very slowness allows us to appreciate the atmosphere in which Merteuil and Valmont plan the ruination of innocents: boredom, really. They have nothing better to do, so destroying others is a pastime to them.

The settings, costumes, and makeup reinforce this atmosphere - they are splendidly done, and one may well talk of oppressive opulence. The opening of the film actually puts costume and make-up to symbolic use; it is inspired: we follow Merteuil and Valmont through their morning toilette, getting dressed and made up, foreshadowing the masquerade they put on and in which they both are actors, but Merteuil is eventually revealed to be the director.

The casting I thought superb. Malkovich is in my opinion perfectly suited to play Valmont precisely because he is not conventionally attractive. The character relies on his powers of manipulation and the occasional subterfuge for his `conquests,' and Malkovich achieves an accomplished embodiment of both - impossible to say no to, with just that necessary element of ruthlessness. There have been complaints that Glenn Close is not attractive enough to be the Marquise, but I disagree. Her character is motivated by a will to control and dominate. As she says herself: `I was born to dominate your sex and to avenge my own' or words to that effect. Her sexuality similarly is not driven purely by pleasure, hence her refusal to give Valmont his reward. She sees him not conforming to the part she has `written' for him and re-establishes herself as unattainable unless he brings the ultimate sacrifice. And Glenn Close delivers this calculating woman so convincingly that it is easy for me at least to understand why Valmont would go to any length to bed her. Just as he wants Tourvel to betray everything she ever believed in, he wants the controlling Merteuil to submit to him - hence the repeated reminders of their past love. Merteuil at one point says that he was the only one she (almost? I'm not entirely sure) lost control with.

The supporting actors I also find well chosen. Reeves may seem a strange choice, but the character is a bit of a wet blanket to start with, and he gives the docile creature easily manipulated by Valmont and Merteuil quite well. But better are Pfeiffer and Thurman, who both undergo convincing changes from innocents abroad to someone well on the way to a willing pupil of the Marquise and Vicomte (in Thurman's case) and to someone genuinely suffering from the opposing demands of morals and love (Pfeiffer).

If you only watch one dialogue-driven costume drama set in the eighteenth century this year, make it this one (though if you can take more, give `The Madness of King George' a look-in, too).

Possible Spoilers!

Not being an enthusiast for either Mr Gibson's or Mr Shyamalan's work, I waited for my flatmate to rent the DVD before viewing this movie. I must admit, I had been intrigued by the trailers - looked like a good old fright-from-outer-space picture to me. It isn't, though - more's the pity.

"Signs" does employ a few time-honoured tools of the genre - inexplicable phenomena (corn circles - could have been a good hook), the fact that you don't really see the creatures until quite late, and the classic situation of it all happening to (or at least centring on) a lonesome farmstead, all these are classic devices.

But what comes along in this garb is not actually an alien-shocker sort of film, but rather a drama of spiritual rediscovery (potted: Cleric loses wife, as a consequence loses faith, but it turns out her last words as well as some of the action in the film preceding the finale can be interpreted as divine predetermination/intervention, and badabing-badaboom: he rediscovers his faith). Quite apart form the fact that I'm personally not likely to be impressed by challenge-to-faith storylines (unless done in manners as excellent as "Dead Man Walking"), I think this is what spoiled the film for me: trying to both spiritually challenging and suspenseful, it fails on both counts.

As to the first: the alien invasion is not plotted well enough to make the viewer really interested. We don't know why they come (or where they come from), we do not get to know anything about their greater strategies, and most of all, we do not get a satisfying bust-up at the end (someone found a way to repeal them, apparently - that's all we are told. And there's a scene in which an alien is vanquished by the judicious use of a baseball bat and tap-water - effective, maybe, but hardly riveting. "independence Day" - need I say more? Not a film I find intellectually interesting, but then, so few of the alien take-over genre are). Of course I am aware of the fact that the invasion is incidental to the film's main theme, the vicar's return to the godhead - rather like the murder in Gosford Park - but a) the trailer should have given me an idea of that and b) that storyline is beset with problems of its own.

Actually, for me at least, its really only one problem: its too pat to be in any way engaging. At the centre of the picture, a dialogue scene is used to introduce a dualist view of humanity: those who believe in predetermination, and those who believe in the essential randomness of life. The film then continues to integrate disparate occurrences (from the dead wife's last words to a child's bad habit of leaving half-empty water glasses standing around) into the parson's final revelation that God must exist because why else would it all make sense in the final instance. Unfortunately, it's all too glib for my taste - where's the spiritual challenge? Getting over a loved one's death has been done better before. Not to mention the fact that the central dialogue mentioned is unbelievably trite, theologically about as sophisticated as a penny catechism, and geared towards an audience of the literalist kind with a Manichean world-view (dare I say US American at this point?) - and not towards anyone with a shred of interest in the psychological machinations of fitting a disastrous event into an essentially optimistic religious world view.

Failing both as a suspenseful and technically interesting exercise in the alien invasion genre and as an exploration of crise de foi, I cannot recommend this film - watch it when your flatmate/partner rents it, but don't rent it yourself.