Hey folks, Harry here. And again we turn our eyes at the beautiful, if often overlooked female sibling of the Coens.... That's right... Coen Sister is back with a report from SUNDANCE on the amazingly well-casted film... PANIC, which stars a romantic coupling of... William H Macy and... wait for it... Neve Campbell. WHAT!?!?!?!?! I know Bill Macy has better taste than that, I've seen SPORT'S NIGHT. But I do have to applaud Neve for her great taste in one of the coolest of human beings. Anyways... without further ado... Here's the cutest Coen ever, Coen Sister...
I seriously don't know how I got into this movie. Even with all the heavily-buzzed films playing here, from AMERICAN PSYCHO to VIRGIN SUICIDES, there was only one movie I wanted to see since I first saw the Sundance line-up and that was PANIC. I first heard about this movie when William H. Macy was on Jay Leno promoting PLEASANTVILLE, over a year ago. He had mentioned at the time he had to do a nude scene in it, which immediately piqued my interest. Since then, I've been following the news on this movie like a hawk. But there was only one chance for me to see it, as Tuesday was the final screening. Tickets had been sold out for weeks, so I went ahead and got in the wait list line and waited for over three hours with the small hope I would get in.
I was the very last person let into the theater, and I had the absolute worst seat there. No matter. I was still in a state of shock I was finally seeing this film, even as it faded in on William H. Macy and you heard his unmistakable voice talking about his empty life. For the uninitiated, PANIC is the tale of Alex (Macy), an everyday man with an unusual family business. His father (wonderfully played by Donald Sutherland) hires him out to kill people, something he began training Alex to do before he was 10 years old. Alex's midlife crisis is further complicated when he meets Sarah, a sexually confused and bold hairdresser played by Neve Campbell.
A lot of the talk around this movie surrounded the May-December romance between Macy and Campbell and whether or not it would be realistic. Being younger than Neve Campbell, I can assure you I had no problem whatsoever buying into this. I may have criticized her lip-biting nervousness in the past but in this film she finally gets a role that allows her to be tragic, yet funny and crazy. It's a slight variation on her character in WILD THINGS, which I still consider her best performance yet.
In fact, the entire cast is excellent. Donald Sutherland and Barbara Bain play the parents you'll love to hate, disappointed in their son for wanting to live a more "moral life". Tracey Ullman does nice and understated (Ullman and understated in the same sentence--weird) work as Macy's long-suffering wife. John Ritter is always a pleasure to see on screen as Macy's psychologist, even though he tries to disguise himself with a goofy beard...you'll still see shades of Jack Tripper. And of course, there's Macy himself. Yeah, so I'm biased, but for a reason. The guy is simply the best actor we have working today and he actually turns in quite a different performance from what I was expecting. With the film titled PANIC, I guess I had in mind more of the FARGO-esque flailing and forehead scrunching that he so excels at. But his Alex is actually a very emotionally reserved, repressed individual who, in his own words, "doesn't get angry". In one scene, Campbell describes him a! s not being good-looking, but being "beautiful. He has beautiful, sad eyes". In fact, a lot of the anguish of his character is never spoken, only conveyed through his pained expressions.
Henry Bromwell, who works on CHICAGO HOPE, wrote and directed this film and I believe it's his first feature. It's sometimes overwritten and the ending is extremely unsatisfying considering where I thought the movie was going, but he creates a tapestry of characters I really came to care about. He has injected a lot of black comedy into his scenarios--a scene where Sutherland proudly takes his son on his first kill is particularly hilarious in a twisted way--and when things start to get too heavy he throws in funny little moments like showing how Ullman and Macy first met. Another thing--this has got to be the first movie I've seen in a year that didn't run over 2 hours. It's very expertly put together and not a single scene feels unnecessary. In fact, I actually wanted to see more (particularly when the film seemed to come to an abrupt end).
I think the highest reccommendation I can give this film is to say that it wasn't until it was even over that I noticed there never was a nude scene. It was still worth it.
Coen Sister
