Hey folks, Harry here! It seems that once again the powers that be are sending a quality film to video instead of your local theaters... Here, I'll let Capone tell ya... just ain't no justice for the righteous...
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. I was just reviewing some of the Talkbacks for my RAT RACE review and was stunned at how my brain fart caused such chaos. When I said that RAT RACE wasn't the colossal fuck up that AMERICAN BEAUTY was, I was actually talking about AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS, which is clearly the worst movie ever made in the history of film. Sorry for the confusion. Anyway, onto smaller and better things…
About three years ago, writer-director Brad Anderson made one of my favorite movies at the time called NEXT STOP WONDERLAND. Not only did I instantly fall in love with Hope Davis upon watching this film, but I loved the intelligence of the script and the care in which Anderson crafted both his male and female characters. I also thought he proved himself an expert of choosing the right music for the occasion. And after WONDERLAND, Anderson seemed to disappear from my radar. I seem to recall rumblings shortly after WONDERLAND was released that he's started another project; and I've been reading a lot recently about his latest film called SESSION 9, which should be hitting screens this weekend. But prior to SESSION 9, Anderson made another film called HAPPY ACCIDENTS, which premiered at Sundance this year, and, if memory serves, Roger Ebert said it was one of his favorites at that festival.
One of this year's bigger crimes against film lovers (of the many thousands to pick from so far)may be that HAPPY ACCIDENTS never sees the light of day. Once again, Anderson takes on the writing and directing (as well as the editing). The film was actually made in 1999, and as good as it is, HAPPY ACCIDENTS is the kind of movie that would be a hard sell to any mainstream audience. Marisa Tomei stars in what is probably the best role of her career as Ruby, a woman drawn to men who need fixing. Right off the bat, I was skeptical. How many times have we seen this part? How many times has Tomei played this party? Didn't we just see her do this in WHAT WOMEN WANT? But Anderson handles this differently, we are not just told that Ruby picks these freaks for boyfriends; we find out why with a few well-chosen scenes with her mother, who spent much of her marriage trying to get her husband to stop drinking. Ruby figured it was a woman's job to fix these damaged men and make them loving, perfect people. Ruby and her friends frequently commiserate over drinks, while going through their "Ex-Files," shoe boxes filled with snapshots of old boyfriends.
We also get a great deal of insight into Ruby's personality through her many sessions with her therapist (the classy Holland Taylor). Unlike other films, these therapy session are not played for laughs but they also don't exist to let Tomei do her "acting" thing. She doesn't break down and cry every five minutes. Ruby and the shrink actually seem to be picking apart her way of thinking. Ruby certainly has a lot to talk about when she meets Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio), a health care worker who immediately takes a liking to Ruby. Ruby sees him as a sweet and simple guy, with a few odd by likeable quirks. He seems to be completely unaware of what vinyl records are, he doesn't know the differences between roses and carnations, he's afraid of small dogs, and he has brief "spells" where his eyes glaze over and he stops moving. Ruby figures it could be worse. At this point, I thought for sure that the two were going to fall in love, and then we'd find out that Sam has a fatal disease. Boy, I wasn't even close.
The two move in together, and Ruby seems perfectly content to live with Sam's eccentricities until she finds his sketch pad with drawing of a woman and a woman's name scrawled dozens of times on every page. Ruby thinks Sam is having an affair and demands and explanation. Once in a great while, a movie takes a turn at an exact moment and it changes your mind about how much you're going to like it. Sam finally breaks down and tells her who he really is. With complete calmness, Sam informs Ruby that he's a time traveller from the future (I believe he says he's from the mid-2400s), that he lived on the Atlantic Coast of Iowa (apparently ice-cap melting devouring everything east of the Mississippi), that his parent's were something of a rebellious force in the future, and that he was forced to travel back in time to escape persecution. He says that there are actually quite a few "back travellers" living on the earth and the woman's name in his sketch pad was his contact person once he made it to 1999 New York. Sam is loaded with tales of how his contact created his backstory and gave him false credentials, about how time travel works, of the many untested theories of time travel, and how travellers can effect the future. Ruby is pretty sure at this point that her Ex-Files box is going to have one more photo in it very soon.
Somehow Sam convinces her to let him stay, and while she doesn't believe a word of what he's saying, she's so taken by him that she allows him his fantasies as long as he doesn't appear threatening in any way. Very healthy. Ruby tells her therapist and her best friend about Sam's stories. Her friend thinks it's cool and suggests keeping him (at first), the therapist insists that she meet him. I don't think it's safe to tell any more of HAPPY ACCIDENTS' plot, except to say that nothing plays out like you think it will. There's also a sort of unlikely tension cast of the entire film because we're waiting to see what happens when Sam's fantasies are shattered; or perhaps it's Ruby's mindset that needs altering. The film asks a lot of questions about the nature of love. What is great love? Is it sex? Is it trust? Or is it believing what the other person tells you no matter how far fetched what they're saying is?
As great as Tomei is here, D'Onofrio is even better. He starts out playing such a nice, normal (relatively speaking) guy that I couldn't believe it was the same actor who often is called upon to chew up scenery like a locust (literally in MEN IN BLACK). I've been a fan of his since FULL METAL JACKET, but I've seen him in more than a few parts where he needed to be reigned in substantially. He's so convincing. How would a man from the future act? Like Van Damme? No, he'd be lost and confused but eager to learn and fit in. And that's how he plays it. He tells Tomei stories about wars and other cataclysmic future events like he was reading them from a text book; he speaks dozens of languages fluently (because he has a chip in his head with all this information, according to Sam). Sam's stories alone could have made a wonderful film. Despite the borderline sci-fi elements and psycho-babble scattered throughout HAPPY ACCIDENTS, at its core it is unabashedly a love story. "Love conquers all" is taken quite literally by Brad Anderson. He's made a highly entertaining, fluid, beautifully told film that you may never see on a screen. The fact that the print I saw was labeled as an IFC Films production makes me think it may premiere on the Independent Film Channel; let's hope. But it made all the difference to experience the end of this film with an audience. The collective gasp was quite audible. Keep an eye out for this one on the big or small screen. It's been a while since I've said this, but this is a film I'm passionate about.
Capone (Listen up, email me so I know you love me!)
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