The film begins on a beach near the everglades, a young kid named Finn(Jeremy Kissner) is sketching the wildlife, when all of a sudden Robert De Niro in all his glory emerges from a cascade of water only inches deep and begins to terrorize young Finn. He orders the lad to help him break his chains and take him away.
So our hero goes to his sister(Kim Dickens) and her boyfriend Walter (Hank Azaria) ’s place gets metal clippers, and does so. So far so good.
Then, for no reason that we can as yet discern, Walter and Finn are summoned to the decrepit mansion of the delightfully loopy Ms. Nora Dinsmoor(Anne Bancroft), where Finn is given a job as companion to Ms. Nora’s niece Estella(Raquel Beaudene) the epitome of snootiness.
He’s going to be an artist, she a heartbreaker, they dance at the behest of Ms. Nora and explore the area as only children can. Finn’s sister is unneeded so she leaves. Then all of a sudden, the two preadolescents turn into Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke and things begin to fall apart.
Not really, though, but the pace falters somewhat, and Hawke, while more than okay, really can’t hold the whole thing together by himself like he has to throughout most of the film. Paltrow is good, but underused.
The depiction of the New York art world isn’t true to the real thing or to the story, and while it might have worked when Dickens originally wrote it, it doesn’t work here in the end of the following century.
All in all, it’s too slow paced for it’s own good. Too stately for 1990s New York, and unlike that other updating of a 19th century novel, “Clueless” isn’t fun to watch at all.
All in all, close but no cigar...
