Hey there Yogi Bear, Harry here. I know... You may be getting tired of seeing reviews for this film, but... It's my site and if I want to deluge you with convincing reviews to possibly motivate you to see the best film I've seen so far this year... I'm doing it. I'm shameless, but this is the EXACT type of film that comes and goes and makes jaded critics shake their heads at the American Movie-Going public for an extreme lack of taste. Personally, it is my belief that the American public has good taste... but they need to HEAR ABOUT THE FILM to go. Thus... Why I'm pushing this film. Films this good come out VERY rarely... and as a debut movie it ranks among the very best. I've been taking steps to insure that we have a lot of coverage for this movie because... You not only need to see this one, but recruit people to go with you. Well... enough of me... Onto the main man of the hour...
Well, Harry, let me preface this by saying that I'm not usually motivated to write reviews of movies. I was thrilled by "The Matrix" like everyone else, thoroughly enjoyed the very smart yet woefully underseen "Election", and was impressed with but not blown away by "The Sixth Sense". These were all good films, but it took until September 2, 1999 for me to see the first truly great film of the year. I arrived with a friend about 45 minutes before the screening, and there were probably about 100 people ahead of us, and 30 behind us by time they let us in. A suit was anxiously dancing around in the back of the theatre, and when the film began and the volume was so low, he ran out, and had the problem fixed in a minute (where was he when I sat through the first 20 minutes of "American Pie" straining to make out the dialogue?) What I mostly heard in line was that people didn't know what to expect, and very few had even seen a trailer of the film. For the two hours that we spent in the darkened theatre together though, we laughed, shifted uncomfortably in our seats (more on that in a bit), and finally when it was all over, when the screen faded to black, sat there a bit stunned before breaking into applause (not thunderous, but I think many in the audience were a bit taken aback).
The performances, unilaterally across the board were brilliant. Kevin Spacey's character was not dissimilar to the character he played in "The Ref"; his expressions, his mannerisms, and oh, those fantastic one-liners..wow. This performance has Oscar nomination written all over it. Annette Bening, Thora Birch, a *much* hotter here than in "American Pie", Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper (in perhaps the most difficult role)...all very good, but I found the next most compelling performance to be that of Wes Bentley. An intense, multi-layered acting job that has the audience never quite sure what's going on in his head, well, until the scene. The scene, of course being where he and Thora sit down and watch the most beautiful thing that he's ever filmed.
The dialogue was so sharp, so unexpectedly funny (many of Spacey's lines-particularly at the real estate convention, pot-smoking excursion-extracted so much laughter that the following lines couldn't be heard) that when my friend and I rode home in the car, we could repeat scenes verbatim. At this point, let me chime in with her two thoughts on the movie...one, that it was beautifully shot (the red and white imagery, the framing of the characters, the overhead shots of the trees that coincided so well with Spacey's voiceover bits, and two, that she spent a lot of the film cringing. And there, I think she hit the nail on the head. We get to really know these characters, so when things happen (I'm trying to keep this relatively spoiler-free), we share their discomfort. So, she said, she cringed a lot and laughed a lot, and that she wanted to see it again..immediately to see things that she hadn't caught the first time around.
But again, let me emphasize this is Spacey's film...he owns it, every single frame. The sly smiles, the singing in the car, the wonderful fantasy sequences...Spacey's performance grabs you by the balls, and carries you along on his journey, on his search for fulfillment to the bittersweet end....
Well, Harry, like I said I don't often feel compelled to write reviews, and I probably won't do so again (those Talkback flames might singe my delicate ego), but I just had to share my thoughts with you and having read so many of your similar views on films, I felt inspired me to voice my own.
Cheers.
inviz
