Near the climax of Richard Strauss’ opera “Salome,” the title character performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for her stepfather, King Herod. The dance is done as a barter: In exchange, Herod will behead the man Salome loves so that she may kiss his lips. The Dance of the Seven Veils finds Salome swaying and whirling erotically with a set of scarves, landing somewhere between an object of sexual fascination for her onlookers and a lovestruck woman reaching for agency through movement.
“Seven Veils,” written and directed by Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”), follows an opera director who is staging a production of “Salome” and, like the tragic heroine, clashes with a series of men in her quest to recover a sense of control. This slippage between art and life, sincerity and trickery, is key to deriving some sense of meaning from this strange and sultry but ultimately exasperating film,...
“Seven Veils,” written and directed by Atom Egoyan (“The Sweet Hereafter”), follows an opera director who is staging a production of “Salome” and, like the tragic heroine, clashes with a series of men in her quest to recover a sense of control. This slippage between art and life, sincerity and trickery, is key to deriving some sense of meaning from this strange and sultry but ultimately exasperating film,...
- 9/14/2023
- by Natalia Winkelman
- Indiewire
Welcome to the return of Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, I invite a guest to discuss an arthouse, foreign, or experimental film of their choice.
For the fourteenth episode, I talked to the editor-in-chief/co-founder of The Film Stage, Jordan Raup, about Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s 1994 erotic melodrama Exotica (available on a new Criterion Collection disc and alongside Calendar, The Sweet Hereafter, and The Adjustor on the Criterion Channel).
At first blush, Egoyan’s film defies easy categorization with its recursive structure, multiple central characters, and the director’s own penchant for throwing viewers into previously defined relationships. Exotica’s dizzying construction only amplifies those sensations with the characters’ winding stream-of-consciousness monologues, Dp Paul Sarossy’s furtive camerawork, and Mychael Danna’s Egyptian-influenced score.
The plot isn’t easily described, but it can be distilled down to the intersection...
For the fourteenth episode, I talked to the editor-in-chief/co-founder of The Film Stage, Jordan Raup, about Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s 1994 erotic melodrama Exotica (available on a new Criterion Collection disc and alongside Calendar, The Sweet Hereafter, and The Adjustor on the Criterion Channel).
At first blush, Egoyan’s film defies easy categorization with its recursive structure, multiple central characters, and the director’s own penchant for throwing viewers into previously defined relationships. Exotica’s dizzying construction only amplifies those sensations with the characters’ winding stream-of-consciousness monologues, Dp Paul Sarossy’s furtive camerawork, and Mychael Danna’s Egyptian-influenced score.
The plot isn’t easily described, but it can be distilled down to the intersection...
- 11/3/2022
- by Michael Snydel
- The Film Stage
It would take more explaining than the film merits to articulate why deep-fried rabbit ears are briefly a plot point in “Guest of Honour,” but so they are: The camera grazes over a platter of the oval-shaped delicacies, looking invitingly golden-crumbed and crunchy, and for a second any reservations you might have about the unusual menu item fall away. , in which a frayed father-daughter bond yields all manner of secondary indiscretions and traumas over a wildly careering 15-year timeframe. Incorporating stray narrative and thematic elements from Egoyan’s earlier (and far better) films into an odd kind of self-pastiche, this unwelcome “Guest” serves only to remind viewers how the director’s gifts have withered.
An Atom bomb even by his unreliable recent standards, “Guest of Honour” does, however, extend Egoyan’s mystifying run of major European competition berths for shaky genre pieces of limited artistic ambition. While the combination of...
An Atom bomb even by his unreliable recent standards, “Guest of Honour” does, however, extend Egoyan’s mystifying run of major European competition berths for shaky genre pieces of limited artistic ambition. While the combination of...
- 9/4/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Guest of Honour
Canada’s Atom Egoyan ends a four year break with his sixteenth feature Guest of Honour. Serving as producer alongside Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss. The film is financed through Playtime, Elevation Pictures, Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm. Described as a “twisted psychological thriller,” Egoyan’s cast includes David Thewlis, Luke Wilson, Rossif Sutherland, Laysla De Oliveira, and Gage Munroe. Egoyan’s usual cinematographer Paul Sarossy will be lensing. Egoyan came to prominence with 1987’s Family Viewing, winning the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Locarno and an Honorable Mention in Berlin’s Forum sidebar for the same title.…...
Canada’s Atom Egoyan ends a four year break with his sixteenth feature Guest of Honour. Serving as producer alongside Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss. The film is financed through Playtime, Elevation Pictures, Ego Film Arts and The Film Farm. Described as a “twisted psychological thriller,” Egoyan’s cast includes David Thewlis, Luke Wilson, Rossif Sutherland, Laysla De Oliveira, and Gage Munroe. Egoyan’s usual cinematographer Paul Sarossy will be lensing. Egoyan came to prominence with 1987’s Family Viewing, winning the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Locarno and an Honorable Mention in Berlin’s Forum sidebar for the same title.…...
- 1/3/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
We have probably reached the saturation point of fiction in film and prose about the Holocaust. While it remains an intensely personal tragedy for those connected with it, dramas about those horrific years have all begun to gain a sameness. Dark, moody, sad and when well done, incredibly affecting. That was certainly the way I felt when I first heard the latest entry in the genre, Remember.
What made it compelling to sample was the notion that this was largely going to be a two person drama and when those two happen to be Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, you pay attention. Both bring decades of experience to the screen and in their twilight years, have a gravitas that adds to their characters. The film, from director Atom Egoyan, is about the Holocaust but it is also about friendship, memory, and justice. Heady stuff and overall, the movie works.
Plummer is Zev Guttman,...
What made it compelling to sample was the notion that this was largely going to be a two person drama and when those two happen to be Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, you pay attention. Both bring decades of experience to the screen and in their twilight years, have a gravitas that adds to their characters. The film, from director Atom Egoyan, is about the Holocaust but it is also about friendship, memory, and justice. Heady stuff and overall, the movie works.
Plummer is Zev Guttman,...
- 5/5/2016
- by Robert Greenberger
- Comicmix.com
'Affliction' movie: Nick Nolte as the troubled police officer Wade Whitehouse. 'Affliction' movie: Great-looking psychological drama fails to coalesce Set in a snowy New Hampshire town, Affliction could have been an excellent depiction of a dysfunctional family's cycle of violence and how that is accentuated by rapid, destabilizing socioeconomic changes. Unfortunately, writer-director Paul Schrader's 1998 film doesn't quite reach such heights.* Based on a novel by Russell Banks (who also penned the equally snowy The Sweet Hereafter), Schrader's Affliction relies on a realistic wintry atmosphere (courtesy of cinematographer Paul Sarossy) to convey the deadness inside the story's protagonist, the middle-aged small-town sheriff Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte). The angst-ridden Wade is intent on not ending up like his abusive, alcoholic father, Glen (James Coburn), while inexorably sliding down that very path. Making matters more complicated, Wade must come to terms with the fact that his ex-wife, Lillian (Mary Beth Hurt), will never return to him,...
- 8/25/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Exotica
Written & Directed by Atom Egoyan
Canada, 1994
Atom Egoyan’s serpentine erotic thriller, Exotica, is a flawless exercise in understated urgency. Flashbacks, arresting visuals, and Mychael Danna’s score slowly reveal a web of strangers inextricably linked by one man’s suffering. It’s less a cinematic puzzle than an organic realization. When all of the mysteries are unraveled, you know a little bit more about the Human condition. Though many consider The Sweet Hereafter to be Egoyan’s masterpiece, Exotica is fearless indie filmmaking at its best.
From the very first images of Exotica—a languid tracking shot across an artificial tropical landscape—we have the unsettling feeling that something terrible is lurking in the weeds. “You have to ask yourself what brought the person to this point,” an unseen narrator advises us. Egoyan then spends the next 100 minutes re-constructing the events that irrevocably shattered each of his characters.
Written & Directed by Atom Egoyan
Canada, 1994
Atom Egoyan’s serpentine erotic thriller, Exotica, is a flawless exercise in understated urgency. Flashbacks, arresting visuals, and Mychael Danna’s score slowly reveal a web of strangers inextricably linked by one man’s suffering. It’s less a cinematic puzzle than an organic realization. When all of the mysteries are unraveled, you know a little bit more about the Human condition. Though many consider The Sweet Hereafter to be Egoyan’s masterpiece, Exotica is fearless indie filmmaking at its best.
From the very first images of Exotica—a languid tracking shot across an artificial tropical landscape—we have the unsettling feeling that something terrible is lurking in the weeds. “You have to ask yourself what brought the person to this point,” an unseen narrator advises us. Egoyan then spends the next 100 minutes re-constructing the events that irrevocably shattered each of his characters.
- 4/12/2015
- by J.R. Kinnard
- SoundOnSight
Welcome back to Cannes Check, In Contention's annual preview of the films in Competition at next month's Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 14. Taking on different selections every day, we'll be examining what they're about, who's involved and what their chances are of snagging an award from Jane Campion's jury. Next up, the third Canadian director in the lineup: Atom Egoyan's "The Captive." The director: Atom Egoyan (Canadian, 53 years old). There was a time when Egoyan looked to be as estimable a festival fixture as his compatriot David Cronenberg, but his career hasn't moved in the direction many thought it would after he won big at Cannes (and scooped a surprise Best Director Oscar nod) for 1997's critical peak “The Sweet Hereafter.” Born in Cairo to Armenian-Egyptian parents – a heritage he'd later explore in his 2002 film “Ararat” – Egoyan largely grew up in British Columbia and studied...
- 5/3/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
Variety is reporting that Image Entertainment has scooped up the distribution rights to Atom Egoyan’s crime thriller Devil’s Knot. Image, a division of Maryland-based Rlj Entertainment, plans to release the film next year in the second quarter.
Synopsis:
Worldview Entertainment's dramatic crime thriller Devil's Knot, filmed in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area under the direction of Atom Egoyan, stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth with a screenplay by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson. Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, and Clark Peterson produced Devil’s Knot alongside Worldview Entertainment CEO Christopher Woodrow. Worldview’s Molly Conners, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Maria Cestone, and Hoyt David Morgan executive produced alongside actual defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. Devil’s Knot is a Fowler-Saperstein-Peterson Production.
Following the release from prison of the West Memphis Three, after nearly 20 years of incarceration, Hollywood was abuzz with plans to develop the teen trio's...
Synopsis:
Worldview Entertainment's dramatic crime thriller Devil's Knot, filmed in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area under the direction of Atom Egoyan, stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth with a screenplay by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson. Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, and Clark Peterson produced Devil’s Knot alongside Worldview Entertainment CEO Christopher Woodrow. Worldview’s Molly Conners, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Maria Cestone, and Hoyt David Morgan executive produced alongside actual defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. Devil’s Knot is a Fowler-Saperstein-Peterson Production.
Following the release from prison of the West Memphis Three, after nearly 20 years of incarceration, Hollywood was abuzz with plans to develop the teen trio's...
- 10/7/2013
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
The first still from the true-crime tale Devil's Knot, which is based on the tragedy surrounding the now freed West Memphis Three, is here, and it offers your first look at Reese Witherspoon as Pam Hobbs, the mother of Steve Branch, one of the three children savagely murdered in Arkansas in 1993.
Synopsis:
Worldview Entertainment's dramatic crime thriller Devil's Knot, filmed in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area under the direction of Atom Egoyan, stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth with a screenplay by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson. Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, and Clark Peterson produced Devil’s Knot alongside Worldview Entertainment CEO Christopher Woodrow. Worldview’s Molly Conners, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Maria Cestone, and Hoyt David Morgan executive produced alongside actual defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. Devil’s Knot is a Fowler-Saperstein-Peterson Production.
Following the release from prison of the West Memphis Three, after nearly 20 years of incarceration,...
Synopsis:
Worldview Entertainment's dramatic crime thriller Devil's Knot, filmed in the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area under the direction of Atom Egoyan, stars Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth with a screenplay by Paul Harris Boardman and Scott Derrickson. Elizabeth Fowler, Richard Saperstein, and Clark Peterson produced Devil’s Knot alongside Worldview Entertainment CEO Christopher Woodrow. Worldview’s Molly Conners, Sarah Johnson Redlich, Maria Cestone, and Hoyt David Morgan executive produced alongside actual defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. Devil’s Knot is a Fowler-Saperstein-Peterson Production.
Following the release from prison of the West Memphis Three, after nearly 20 years of incarceration,...
- 5/22/2013
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Nicolas Bolduc, Paul Sarossy, and the other nominations for the 2011 Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards have been announced. The Canadian Society of Cinematographers (Csc) is used “to promote the art and craft of cinematography and to provide tangible recognition of the common bonds that link film and video professionals, from the aspiring student and camera assistant to the news veteran and senior director of photography. Csc members are involved in the production of feature films, documentaries, television series, specials and commercials.” The Csc Awards will be handed out on April 2, 2011 at the Frontenac Ballroom, Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto. The full listing of the 2011 Canadian Society of Cinematographers Awards nominations is below.
The Roy Tash Award For Spot News Cinematography
Adam Blair Obstacles in Haiti, CTV News
Gord Edick G20 Shots Fired/Protestors Confronted, Global News
George Papadionysia Despair in Port-au-Prince, CTV News
The Stan Clinton Award For News Essay...
The Roy Tash Award For Spot News Cinematography
Adam Blair Obstacles in Haiti, CTV News
Gord Edick G20 Shots Fired/Protestors Confronted, Global News
George Papadionysia Despair in Port-au-Prince, CTV News
The Stan Clinton Award For News Essay...
- 3/4/2011
- by filmbook
- Film-Book
Affliction (1998) Direction: Paul Schrader Cast: Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Mary Beth Hurt, Jim True, Marian Seldes Screenplay: Paul Schrader; from Russell Banks' novel Oscar Movies Nick Nolte, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe, Sissy Spacek, Affliction Set in a snowy New England town, Affliction could have been an excellent depiction of a dysfunctional family's cycle of violence and how that is affected by rapid, destabilizing socioeconomic changes. Unfortunately, Paul Schrader's film doesn't quite reach those heights. Based on a novel by Russell Banks (who also penned the equally snowy The Sweet Hereafter), Schrader's film adaptation relies on a realistic wintry atmosphere (courtesy of cinematographer Paul Sarossy) to convey the deadness inside the heart of the story's protagonist, the angst-ridden small-town sheriff Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte). The middle-aged Wade is intent on not ending up like his abusive, alcoholic father, Glen (James Coburn), while inexorably sliding down that very path.
- 2/9/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Yesterday, the winners at the 25th Gemini Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy Awards, were revealed as Corey Monteith (Glee) was hosting that night. Moreover, Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi: The Next Generation was crowned by the public as the best Canadian TV series of the last 25 years.
Without further ado, here's the list of winners.
Best Animated Program or Series:
Glen Martin, Dds
Best Children or Youth Fiction Program or Series:
Overruled!
Best Children's or Youth Non-Fiction Program or Series:
Canada's Super Speller
Best Comedy Program or Series:
Less Than Kind
Best Cross-Platform Project - Children’s and Youth:
Taste Buds
Best Cross-Platform Project - Fiction:
Being Erica Webisodes
Best Cross-Platform Project - Non-Fiction:
Kraft Hockeyville 2010
Best Documentary Series:
Licence To Drill
Best Dramatic Mini-Series:
The Summit
Best Dramatic Series:
The Tudors
Best General/Human Interest Series:
Tosca: Flexing at 49
Best History Documentary Program:
Paris 1919
Best Original Program or...
Without further ado, here's the list of winners.
Best Animated Program or Series:
Glen Martin, Dds
Best Children or Youth Fiction Program or Series:
Overruled!
Best Children's or Youth Non-Fiction Program or Series:
Canada's Super Speller
Best Comedy Program or Series:
Less Than Kind
Best Cross-Platform Project - Children’s and Youth:
Taste Buds
Best Cross-Platform Project - Fiction:
Being Erica Webisodes
Best Cross-Platform Project - Non-Fiction:
Kraft Hockeyville 2010
Best Documentary Series:
Licence To Drill
Best Dramatic Mini-Series:
The Summit
Best Dramatic Series:
The Tudors
Best General/Human Interest Series:
Tosca: Flexing at 49
Best History Documentary Program:
Paris 1919
Best Original Program or...
- 11/14/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
After The Tudors, there will be a new Canadian TV series about a very famous European family. The historical drama in question is simply called The Borgias - a co-production between Canada, Hungary and Ireland - and refers to a very corrupted Italian family. The show will premiere in 2011 on CTV and Bravo! in Canada and on Showtime in the USA.
The series revolves around a powerful and corrupt 15th-century Italian family headed by patriarch Rodrigo Borgia (Jeremy Irons), who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Colm Feore (24; Bon Cop Bad Cop) plays Rodrigo’s arch nemesis Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere. As for François Arnaud (J'ai tué ma mère; Yamaska), he plays Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo's son.
Besides, there are Canadians in the creative team. Jeremy Podeswa (The Pacific, Five Senses) will direct two episodes, Paul Sarossy (The Listener, Chloe) will be the director of photography and the production designer will be François Seguin (The Barbarian Invasions,...
The series revolves around a powerful and corrupt 15th-century Italian family headed by patriarch Rodrigo Borgia (Jeremy Irons), who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Colm Feore (24; Bon Cop Bad Cop) plays Rodrigo’s arch nemesis Cardinal Giuliano Della Rovere. As for François Arnaud (J'ai tué ma mère; Yamaska), he plays Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo's son.
Besides, there are Canadians in the creative team. Jeremy Podeswa (The Pacific, Five Senses) will direct two episodes, Paul Sarossy (The Listener, Chloe) will be the director of photography and the production designer will be François Seguin (The Barbarian Invasions,...
- 4/9/2010
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
[Updated with the official press release announcing the start of photography]
They’re local legends for a reason and they’re back ...
Kids in the Hall reunite for Accent Entertainment¹s Death Comes To Town
Principal Photography underway in North Bay, Ontario
August 20th, 2009, Toronto Accent Entertainment in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are thrilled to announce that principal photography began today in North Bay, Ontario on Death Comes to Town created by and starring the Kids in the Hall.
A departure from sketch comedy, Death Comes to Town is an eight-part comic murder mystery. When Death gets off the Greyhound bus in small town Shuckton, Ontario, the entire town is drawn in when one of its most distinguished citizens is found murdered. As a suspect is arrested and the trial plays out, the entire town is affected and its dark secrets are unraveled and exposed.
Though not the sketch comedy that made the Kids famous around the world, Death Comes to Town...
They’re local legends for a reason and they’re back ...
Kids in the Hall reunite for Accent Entertainment¹s Death Comes To Town
Principal Photography underway in North Bay, Ontario
August 20th, 2009, Toronto Accent Entertainment in association with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are thrilled to announce that principal photography began today in North Bay, Ontario on Death Comes to Town created by and starring the Kids in the Hall.
A departure from sketch comedy, Death Comes to Town is an eight-part comic murder mystery. When Death gets off the Greyhound bus in small town Shuckton, Ontario, the entire town is drawn in when one of its most distinguished citizens is found murdered. As a suspect is arrested and the trial plays out, the entire town is affected and its dark secrets are unraveled and exposed.
Though not the sketch comedy that made the Kids famous around the world, Death Comes to Town...
- 8/21/2009
- by Todd Brown
- Screen Anarchy
Release date: May 8
Director/Writer: Atom Egoyan
Cinematographer: Paul Sarossy
Starring: Devon Bostick, Scott Speedman, Arsinee Khanjian
Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 100 mins.
Terrorism parable implodes in hyperbole
With September 11 tucked eight-years deep into America’s collective subconscious, terrorism has mutated from an alien threat to an ingrained reality, unavoidable in its global presence. Canadian-Armenian director Atom Egoyan uses this development as a mechanism to erratically propel the characters of his misguided drama, Adoration. The narrative follows Simon (Devon Bostick), a melancholic teenager who adopts international news headlines into his own life as a way to rationalize the death of his Muslim father and Christian-bred mother, claiming to be the orphan of an anti-Semitic terrorist. Simon’s sensational monologue incites his small town into a communal chat room of ideological conflict, transforming every member young and old into an amateur blogger. Egoyan’s intentions are much more relatable than his actual story.
Director/Writer: Atom Egoyan
Cinematographer: Paul Sarossy
Starring: Devon Bostick, Scott Speedman, Arsinee Khanjian
Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 100 mins.
Terrorism parable implodes in hyperbole
With September 11 tucked eight-years deep into America’s collective subconscious, terrorism has mutated from an alien threat to an ingrained reality, unavoidable in its global presence. Canadian-Armenian director Atom Egoyan uses this development as a mechanism to erratically propel the characters of his misguided drama, Adoration. The narrative follows Simon (Devon Bostick), a melancholic teenager who adopts international news headlines into his own life as a way to rationalize the death of his Muslim father and Christian-bred mother, claiming to be the orphan of an anti-Semitic terrorist. Simon’s sensational monologue incites his small town into a communal chat room of ideological conflict, transforming every member young and old into an amateur blogger. Egoyan’s intentions are much more relatable than his actual story.
- 5/7/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Adoration, Cannes, In Competition
Atom Egoyan's remarkable new film Adoration is a haunting meditation on the nature of received wisdom and how it can warp individuals, damage families and even threaten society.
Shot on beautifully utilized film but employing images vividly from the Internet and mobile phones, it's an examination of the power that false ideas may have on people's imagination and beliefs when they are repeated over and over.
Featuring an exquisitely measured score for violin, cello and piano by Mychael Danna (The Sweet Hereafter, Little Miss Sunshine), the film treats moviegoers as grownups and it will appeal greatly to audiences that relish articulate and insightful filmmaking.
Structured as a mystery story with shifts in time and scenes from the imagination of characters, Egoyan's intelligent script tells of a high school student named Simon who takes a unique approach to an assignment in his French language class.
Required to translate a news story about a pregnant woman who arrived in Israel with a bomb in her luggage placed there by her boyfriend, Simon imagines himself to be the resulting child with his own dead parents cast as the people involved.
Encouraged by his teacher, Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian), Simon develops the story to the point where his classmates believe his father really was a terrorist and soon it's all over the Internet to the alarm of his uncle, Tom (Scott Speedman), who has raised him since his folks were killed in a car accident.
The boy's late grandfather, Morris (Kenneth Welsh), a condescending bigot and proud of it, always made him believe his Lebanese father (Noam Jenkins) had deliberately caused the death of his adored mother (Rachel Blanchard), and Simon feels he was in some way responsible.
Tom feels accountable too and in a series of well-staged and illuminating scenes, Sabine contrives to help them recognize something closer to the truth.
Bostick, who has to carry much of the film, does so with great aplomb while Speedman and Khanjian provide rewarding portraits of people only slowly coming to terms with great personal loss.
Danna's music maintains the film's high IQ with delicacy and warmth employing wonderful soloists Yi-Jia Susanne Hou on violin, Winona Zelenka on cello, and Eve Egoyan on piano. It's destined to make a very popular soundtrack album.
Cast: Arsinee Khanjian, Scott Speedman, Devon Bostick, Rachel Blanchard, Noam Jenkins, Kenneth Walsh. Director: Atom Egoyan. Screenwriter: Atom Egoyan. Director Of Photography: Paul Sarossy. Production Designer: Phillip Barker. Costume Designer: Debra Hanson. Music: Mychael Danna. Editor: Susan Shipton. Producers: Atom Egoyan, Simone Urdl, Jennifer Weiss. Executive Producers:
Robert Lantos, Michele Halberstadt, Laurent Petin. Sales Agent: Fortissimo Films.
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics.
No MPAA rating, running time 100 mins.
Atom Egoyan's remarkable new film Adoration is a haunting meditation on the nature of received wisdom and how it can warp individuals, damage families and even threaten society.
Shot on beautifully utilized film but employing images vividly from the Internet and mobile phones, it's an examination of the power that false ideas may have on people's imagination and beliefs when they are repeated over and over.
Featuring an exquisitely measured score for violin, cello and piano by Mychael Danna (The Sweet Hereafter, Little Miss Sunshine), the film treats moviegoers as grownups and it will appeal greatly to audiences that relish articulate and insightful filmmaking.
Structured as a mystery story with shifts in time and scenes from the imagination of characters, Egoyan's intelligent script tells of a high school student named Simon who takes a unique approach to an assignment in his French language class.
Required to translate a news story about a pregnant woman who arrived in Israel with a bomb in her luggage placed there by her boyfriend, Simon imagines himself to be the resulting child with his own dead parents cast as the people involved.
Encouraged by his teacher, Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian), Simon develops the story to the point where his classmates believe his father really was a terrorist and soon it's all over the Internet to the alarm of his uncle, Tom (Scott Speedman), who has raised him since his folks were killed in a car accident.
The boy's late grandfather, Morris (Kenneth Welsh), a condescending bigot and proud of it, always made him believe his Lebanese father (Noam Jenkins) had deliberately caused the death of his adored mother (Rachel Blanchard), and Simon feels he was in some way responsible.
Tom feels accountable too and in a series of well-staged and illuminating scenes, Sabine contrives to help them recognize something closer to the truth.
Bostick, who has to carry much of the film, does so with great aplomb while Speedman and Khanjian provide rewarding portraits of people only slowly coming to terms with great personal loss.
Danna's music maintains the film's high IQ with delicacy and warmth employing wonderful soloists Yi-Jia Susanne Hou on violin, Winona Zelenka on cello, and Eve Egoyan on piano. It's destined to make a very popular soundtrack album.
Cast: Arsinee Khanjian, Scott Speedman, Devon Bostick, Rachel Blanchard, Noam Jenkins, Kenneth Walsh. Director: Atom Egoyan. Screenwriter: Atom Egoyan. Director Of Photography: Paul Sarossy. Production Designer: Phillip Barker. Costume Designer: Debra Hanson. Music: Mychael Danna. Editor: Susan Shipton. Producers: Atom Egoyan, Simone Urdl, Jennifer Weiss. Executive Producers:
Robert Lantos, Michele Halberstadt, Laurent Petin. Sales Agent: Fortissimo Films.
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics.
No MPAA rating, running time 100 mins.
- 5/22/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARIS -- The Secret, Vincent Perez's remake of Yojiro Takita's Himitsu (1999) transposed to small-town America, is a variation on the afterlife dramas in such films as Ghost (1990) and Birth (2004). The success of such movies suggests this mainly French production could generate moderate ticket sales.
The premise is that, on the point of death after a horrendous road accident, a mother is able, in order to remain close to her husband, to transfer her soul into the body of her teenage daughter.
Samantha (newcomer Olivia Thirlby), or Sam to family and friends, is a typical 16-year-old -- bright, outgoing, but occasionally surly toward her parents, particularly her mother Hannah (Lily Taylor) whom she accuses of treating her like a child. It is her peevishness that distracts Hannah while she is driving, causing the accident that sees both rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Hannah dies. Sam lives, but with Hannah's memories and consciousness. Hannah's distraught husband Ben David Duchovny) is incredulous when his wife speaks to him through Sam's lips, but is finally persuaded that Hannah is still around though located in his daughter's body.
A close, loving couple, they decide that Hannah should resume her daughter's studies so that when and if her daughter returns from whatever limbo she finds herself in, she may be able to slot back in as she was before.
This means her having to mix in with, and in the case of the testosterone-driven young males Justin (Corey Sevier) and Ethan (Brendan Sexton) face amorous advances from, Sam's college friends. Meanwhile Sam's guidance counselor Tara (Macha Grenon) starts taking a sympathetic and then distinctly friendly interest in Ben, triggering a bout of jealousy in Hannah.
The complications set in, not the least of them being the issue of conjugal relations. Ben makes it clear to Hannah early on that sex is out because it would be dangerously close to incest. As the frustrations mount, she complains: "I can't get laid." Ben responds: "I know the feeling". The filmmakers decide to play story of thwarted romance straight, but at times like these the dialogue smacks of Woody Allen.
As the movie gears up for the inevitable bittersweet ending, we feel briefly for Ben and the confusion he faces in his dual role as husband and father to two women apparently inhabiting the same body. Duchovny's playing of Ben is too wooden, the screenplay's handling of the life-and-death issues too prosaic and the ending too contrived and sentimental for the movie to be truly affecting.
On the plus side, Thirlby does an excellent job in the mother-daughter role, one minute a graceless schoolgirl, the next a mature, married woman stuck inside a teenager's body. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy adds the requisite sheen, while Perez, an actor making only his second feature, knows enough not to overdo the sugar coating.
THE SECRET
EuropaCorp.
Credits:
Director: Vincent Perez
Screenwriter: Ann Cherkis
Producer: Virginie Besson-Silla
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Production designer: Serge Bureau
Music: Nathaniel Mechaly
Costume designer: Francois Barbeau
Editor: Yves Beloniak
Cast:
Ben: David Duchovny
Hannah: Lily Taylor
Sam: Olivia Thirlby
Ethan: Brendan Sexton
Justin: Corey Sevier
Ian: Ashley Springer
Amelia: Laurence Leboeuf
Maggie: Jane Wheeler
Lindsay: Millie Tresierra
Tara: Macha Grenon
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The premise is that, on the point of death after a horrendous road accident, a mother is able, in order to remain close to her husband, to transfer her soul into the body of her teenage daughter.
Samantha (newcomer Olivia Thirlby), or Sam to family and friends, is a typical 16-year-old -- bright, outgoing, but occasionally surly toward her parents, particularly her mother Hannah (Lily Taylor) whom she accuses of treating her like a child. It is her peevishness that distracts Hannah while she is driving, causing the accident that sees both rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Hannah dies. Sam lives, but with Hannah's memories and consciousness. Hannah's distraught husband Ben David Duchovny) is incredulous when his wife speaks to him through Sam's lips, but is finally persuaded that Hannah is still around though located in his daughter's body.
A close, loving couple, they decide that Hannah should resume her daughter's studies so that when and if her daughter returns from whatever limbo she finds herself in, she may be able to slot back in as she was before.
This means her having to mix in with, and in the case of the testosterone-driven young males Justin (Corey Sevier) and Ethan (Brendan Sexton) face amorous advances from, Sam's college friends. Meanwhile Sam's guidance counselor Tara (Macha Grenon) starts taking a sympathetic and then distinctly friendly interest in Ben, triggering a bout of jealousy in Hannah.
The complications set in, not the least of them being the issue of conjugal relations. Ben makes it clear to Hannah early on that sex is out because it would be dangerously close to incest. As the frustrations mount, she complains: "I can't get laid." Ben responds: "I know the feeling". The filmmakers decide to play story of thwarted romance straight, but at times like these the dialogue smacks of Woody Allen.
As the movie gears up for the inevitable bittersweet ending, we feel briefly for Ben and the confusion he faces in his dual role as husband and father to two women apparently inhabiting the same body. Duchovny's playing of Ben is too wooden, the screenplay's handling of the life-and-death issues too prosaic and the ending too contrived and sentimental for the movie to be truly affecting.
On the plus side, Thirlby does an excellent job in the mother-daughter role, one minute a graceless schoolgirl, the next a mature, married woman stuck inside a teenager's body. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy adds the requisite sheen, while Perez, an actor making only his second feature, knows enough not to overdo the sugar coating.
THE SECRET
EuropaCorp.
Credits:
Director: Vincent Perez
Screenwriter: Ann Cherkis
Producer: Virginie Besson-Silla
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Production designer: Serge Bureau
Music: Nathaniel Mechaly
Costume designer: Francois Barbeau
Editor: Yves Beloniak
Cast:
Ben: David Duchovny
Hannah: Lily Taylor
Sam: Olivia Thirlby
Ethan: Brendan Sexton
Justin: Corey Sevier
Ian: Ashley Springer
Amelia: Laurence Leboeuf
Maggie: Jane Wheeler
Lindsay: Millie Tresierra
Tara: Macha Grenon
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/10/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Screened at the AFI Fest
The accidental murderer Tom Ripley, that dear American boy who so loves Europe and the good life, returns once more in "Ripley Under Ground", a tongue-in-cheek thriller crossed with a delicious black comedy. Barry Pepper slips into the role with beguiling ease. One loses the exuberant innocence of Matt Damon but gains the enthusiastic, more practiced amorality of a natural-born con man.
Director Roger Spottiswoode claims that Patricia Highsmith, the novelist who created Ripley in a series of novels, felt that previous movie versions missed the humor of her character and the droll wit of her dark plots. If so, then the late author certainly would have appreciated this take by Spottiswoode and writers Donald Westlake and W. Blake Herron. For "Ripley Under Ground" is a full-blown comedy with well-timed entrances and wicked playfulness.
With the right marketing to emphasize the wit and naughtiness, the film should attract a college crowd and urban sophisticates.
Highsmith's 1970 novel, the second in the series, has been updated to contemporary London and the world of art with the homosexual subtext completely removed. The story contains many credibility-stretching accidents so that criminality comes through force of circumstances, not premeditation. The movie finds Ripley taking a stab at the one profession that would truly suit him -- acting -- as a student in a London academy.
Alas, his art doesn't pay the landlady, and his fake credentials and college transcripts have caught up with him. As a distraction, if nothing else, he accompanies pals to a major gallery opening featuring the works of a friend, the crazed and drunken Derwatt (Douglas Henshall). These pals include Derwatt's sultry lover Cynthia (Claire Forlani), who's beginning to wonder whether Derwatt isn't too crazy, and fellow painter Bernard (Ian Hart), insanely jealous over his friend's success and relationship with Cynthia, his ex.
A purse lying in a car attracts Tom's attention. Once he gets in, his attention is diverted by the sleeping beauty in the back seat, a young and beautiful French student named Heloise (Jacinda Barrett). She has a boyfriend, but Tom manages to dispose of him in quick order.
The opening is such a smash that Derwatt makes a drunken proposal to Cynthia. She looks at him in horror and says no. Enraged, Derwatt jumps into his sports car and roars off into the night. Gallery owner Jeff Constant (Alan Cumming) follows with Tom, Cynthia, Bernard and Heloise (who has gone back to sleep) to "protect my investment."
Too late. Derwatt crashes his car, and the world has one less mad-genuis artist. Devastated, Jeff moans that he can't sell a single painting by an unknown dead painter. Tom gets the brilliant idea of deep-freezing Derwatt's body for a few days so the paintings can sell.
When the conspirators discover that Derwatt's studio contains a trove of unfinished paintings, they prevail upon the unstable Bernard to finish the paintings for further sales. Cynthia's suddenly reawakened romantic interest in Bernard seals the deal. Meanwhile, Tom follows Heloise to France, where he is delighted to discover that she is an heiress living in a country chateau that makes Fountainbleu look humble.
Everything goes swell until wealthy American art collector Murchison (Willem Dafoe) shows up and declares his Derwatt a forgery. Soon enough, Murchison goes missing -- really and truly, his death at Tom's hands is accidental -- so Scotland Yard detective Webster (Tom Wilkinson) comes calling.
The script bristles with wit, and Spottiswoode keeps things moving, rushing by every plot hole to keep us focused on his roguish characters. The movie's greatest enjoyment comes from watching the gradual evolution of Heloise from beguiling flirt to ambiguous heiress to Tom's absolute soulmate. Apparently, she absorbed a lot while asleep.
There is much funny business with the movie's two corpses as they get buried, dug up and hidden again. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy and designer Ben Scott make no bones about ogling the swank gallery, posh restaurants, trendy London, glittery Paris and that lovely chateau. Jeff Danna's score, while reminiscent of Gabriel Yared's propulsive, jazz-influenced music in "The Talented Mr. Ripley", is flecked with its own comic commentary.
The actors push characters to extremes without ever sacrificing complete credibility. Pepper is never more innocent looking then when committing a crime. Cumming hasn't a scruple in his body, while Forlani has a body that knows no scruples. Hart is a study in slow-motion disintegration. Wilkinson depicts the frustration of a sharp detective who finds himself outmaneuvered by a con man. But Barrett's naughty French heiress nearly steals the show.
RIPLEY UNDER GROUND
Lions Gate International presents a Cinerenta production
Credits:
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriters: W. Blake Herron, Donald Westlake
Based on the novel by: Patricia Highsmith
Producers: Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Marco Mehlitz, Michael Ohoven, Stephen Ujlaki
Executive producer: Steve Christian, David Barron, Eberhard Kayser
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Production designer: Ben Scott
Music: Jeff Danna
Costumes: Caroline Harris
Editor: Michel Arcand
Cast:
Tom Ripley: Barry Pepper
Heloise: Jacinda Barrett
Webster: Tom Wilkinson
Jeff: Alan Cumming
Cynthia: Claire Forlani
Bernard: Ian Hart
Murchison: Willem Dafoe
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 98 minutes...
The accidental murderer Tom Ripley, that dear American boy who so loves Europe and the good life, returns once more in "Ripley Under Ground", a tongue-in-cheek thriller crossed with a delicious black comedy. Barry Pepper slips into the role with beguiling ease. One loses the exuberant innocence of Matt Damon but gains the enthusiastic, more practiced amorality of a natural-born con man.
Director Roger Spottiswoode claims that Patricia Highsmith, the novelist who created Ripley in a series of novels, felt that previous movie versions missed the humor of her character and the droll wit of her dark plots. If so, then the late author certainly would have appreciated this take by Spottiswoode and writers Donald Westlake and W. Blake Herron. For "Ripley Under Ground" is a full-blown comedy with well-timed entrances and wicked playfulness.
With the right marketing to emphasize the wit and naughtiness, the film should attract a college crowd and urban sophisticates.
Highsmith's 1970 novel, the second in the series, has been updated to contemporary London and the world of art with the homosexual subtext completely removed. The story contains many credibility-stretching accidents so that criminality comes through force of circumstances, not premeditation. The movie finds Ripley taking a stab at the one profession that would truly suit him -- acting -- as a student in a London academy.
Alas, his art doesn't pay the landlady, and his fake credentials and college transcripts have caught up with him. As a distraction, if nothing else, he accompanies pals to a major gallery opening featuring the works of a friend, the crazed and drunken Derwatt (Douglas Henshall). These pals include Derwatt's sultry lover Cynthia (Claire Forlani), who's beginning to wonder whether Derwatt isn't too crazy, and fellow painter Bernard (Ian Hart), insanely jealous over his friend's success and relationship with Cynthia, his ex.
A purse lying in a car attracts Tom's attention. Once he gets in, his attention is diverted by the sleeping beauty in the back seat, a young and beautiful French student named Heloise (Jacinda Barrett). She has a boyfriend, but Tom manages to dispose of him in quick order.
The opening is such a smash that Derwatt makes a drunken proposal to Cynthia. She looks at him in horror and says no. Enraged, Derwatt jumps into his sports car and roars off into the night. Gallery owner Jeff Constant (Alan Cumming) follows with Tom, Cynthia, Bernard and Heloise (who has gone back to sleep) to "protect my investment."
Too late. Derwatt crashes his car, and the world has one less mad-genuis artist. Devastated, Jeff moans that he can't sell a single painting by an unknown dead painter. Tom gets the brilliant idea of deep-freezing Derwatt's body for a few days so the paintings can sell.
When the conspirators discover that Derwatt's studio contains a trove of unfinished paintings, they prevail upon the unstable Bernard to finish the paintings for further sales. Cynthia's suddenly reawakened romantic interest in Bernard seals the deal. Meanwhile, Tom follows Heloise to France, where he is delighted to discover that she is an heiress living in a country chateau that makes Fountainbleu look humble.
Everything goes swell until wealthy American art collector Murchison (Willem Dafoe) shows up and declares his Derwatt a forgery. Soon enough, Murchison goes missing -- really and truly, his death at Tom's hands is accidental -- so Scotland Yard detective Webster (Tom Wilkinson) comes calling.
The script bristles with wit, and Spottiswoode keeps things moving, rushing by every plot hole to keep us focused on his roguish characters. The movie's greatest enjoyment comes from watching the gradual evolution of Heloise from beguiling flirt to ambiguous heiress to Tom's absolute soulmate. Apparently, she absorbed a lot while asleep.
There is much funny business with the movie's two corpses as they get buried, dug up and hidden again. Cinematographer Paul Sarossy and designer Ben Scott make no bones about ogling the swank gallery, posh restaurants, trendy London, glittery Paris and that lovely chateau. Jeff Danna's score, while reminiscent of Gabriel Yared's propulsive, jazz-influenced music in "The Talented Mr. Ripley", is flecked with its own comic commentary.
The actors push characters to extremes without ever sacrificing complete credibility. Pepper is never more innocent looking then when committing a crime. Cumming hasn't a scruple in his body, while Forlani has a body that knows no scruples. Hart is a study in slow-motion disintegration. Wilkinson depicts the frustration of a sharp detective who finds himself outmaneuvered by a con man. But Barrett's naughty French heiress nearly steals the show.
RIPLEY UNDER GROUND
Lions Gate International presents a Cinerenta production
Credits:
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriters: W. Blake Herron, Donald Westlake
Based on the novel by: Patricia Highsmith
Producers: Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Marco Mehlitz, Michael Ohoven, Stephen Ujlaki
Executive producer: Steve Christian, David Barron, Eberhard Kayser
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Production designer: Ben Scott
Music: Jeff Danna
Costumes: Caroline Harris
Editor: Michel Arcand
Cast:
Tom Ripley: Barry Pepper
Heloise: Jacinda Barrett
Webster: Tom Wilkinson
Jeff: Alan Cumming
Cynthia: Claire Forlani
Bernard: Ian Hart
Murchison: Willem Dafoe
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 98 minutes...
- 11/8/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lions Gate Films
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Lions Gate Films
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Lions Gate Films
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
- 3/24/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Lions Gate Films
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
Actor-director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to the Great White Northern domain of Farley Mowat, having played the Canadian author in the 1983 adaptation of his classic novel "Never Cry Wolf".
Smith remains behind the camera for "The Snow Walker", which he adapted from the Mowat short story "Walk Well My Brother". While, visually speaking, he has the untamed terrain down cold, this odd-couple survival tale involving a cocky pilot and a young Inuit woman, which was screened at the much-warmer Bangkok International Film Festival, never quite takes off dramatically.
Barry Pepper brings the right amount of flyboy swagger and a decent Canadian accent to the role of Charlie Halliday, a cocky former World War II pilot who does pickup and delivery work throughout the Northwest Territories for a private air outfit.
During one of his runs, he's approached by an Inuit family who bribe him with a pair of walrus tusks to fly their tubercular daughter (Annabella Piugattuk) to a hospital in Yellowknife.
When engine failure plunges them 200 miles from the nearest village, they must learn to overcome a language barrier and start fending for themselves with the creeping realization that a rescue effort may not be imminent.
Smith and a trio of cinematographers (Paul Sarossy, Jon Joffin and David Connell) capture the imposing elements -- from blinding snow to swarming insects -- to highly visceral effect, while Pepper and the expressive Inuit actress Piugattuk form a curious bond.
But rather than trusting that core relationship, Smith keeps cutting back to home base, where Halliday's boss (James Cromwell) is overseeing a hopeless search-and-rescue mission. Those constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.
First-time director Joe Mantegna and a hardy crew of veteran screen and stage actors ship out on an early, loosely-autobiographical work of David Mamet in the satisfyingly gruff, funny and poignant "Lakeboat". The opening night film of the 6th Los Angeles International Film Festival screened Thursday to a mixed-to-positive reception from the sold-out crowd at the Directors Guild of America.
With a salty ensemble cast, led by Mamet's younger brother and "Lakeboat" co-producer Tony Mamet, the less than $5 million production is certainly worthy of limited theatrical exposure on its course toward rendezvousing with cineastes and Mamet fans in ancillary waters.
Recalling the superb John Ford classic of 1940, "The Long Voyage Home", which was based on four short plays by Eugene O'Neill, "Lakeboat" has a minimal plot that's centered on the summer journey of a steel freighter on the Great Lakes, in more or less the present day. Mamet wrote much of the material 25 years ago, based on his own college-years experiences on a lakeboat, and a full-length stage version was mounted locally to much acclaim at the Tiffany in 1994.
Mantegna does not have an acting role in the movie, but he's not a disappointment behind the camera, with the visual opportunities of the story amply exploited. Filming on a real ship and using the interior and exterior spaces to accentuate the action or mood, Mantegna and cinematographer Paul Sarossy ("X-Men") let the material breathe and the characters roam. Another Mamet brother, composer Bob, contributes a jazzy Chicago-style score that's helpful in the many transitional sequences and generally keeps the mood light.
The story begins and ends with the brief stint of fresh-faced virgin swabby Dale (Tony Mamet), who is in graduate school studying English and seemingly eager for experience and just maybe on the lookout for colorful characters to write about. Well, on the Seaway Queen, there's nothing but cranky guys stuck in routine lives who push each other around verbally but otherwise keep a lid on their collective anomie.
The movie cruises along episodically, with Dale getting to know, in no particular order: sad-sack Joe (Robert Forster), who knows he's one of life's losers; abrasive, tough-loving Stan (J.J. Johnson), who loves to break the rules; weary boss Skippy (Charles Durning), who has much pride; disciplined but cynical firstmate Collins (George Wendt); the creepy but friendly fireman Fireman (Denis Leary); and past-his-prime Fred (Jack Wallace), who has a thing for Steven Seagal movies
Several times, crewmembers speculate on the fate of missing mate Guigliani, with black-and-white fantasy sequences featuring a well-known actor in a surprise cameo and a prostitute (Roberta Angelica). Other stories told by characters are brought to life, but the agenda is frustratingly unfocused. One experiences wicked pleasure from the many hilarious, expletive-loaded exchanges about women, work and life, among other subjects, while waiting for the quieter moments, with Forster in particular delivering a haunted, heartfelt performance.
LAKEBOAT
Oregon Trail Films
In association with One Vibe Entertainment
Director--Joe Mantegna
Screenwriter--David Mamet
Producer--Joe Mantegna, Eric P. Epperson, J.J. Johnson, Tony Mamet, Morris
Ruskin
Executive producers--Eric Epperson, Alan James
Director of photography--Paul Sarossy
Production designer--Thomas Carnegie
Editor--Christopher Cibelli
Costume designer--Margaret Mohr
Music--Bob Mamet
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dale Katzman--Tony Mamet
Joe--Robert Forster
Skippy--Charles Durning
Stan--J.J. Johnson
Fireman--Denis Leary
Fred--Jack Wallace
Collins--George Wendt
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA Rating...
With a salty ensemble cast, led by Mamet's younger brother and "Lakeboat" co-producer Tony Mamet, the less than $5 million production is certainly worthy of limited theatrical exposure on its course toward rendezvousing with cineastes and Mamet fans in ancillary waters.
Recalling the superb John Ford classic of 1940, "The Long Voyage Home", which was based on four short plays by Eugene O'Neill, "Lakeboat" has a minimal plot that's centered on the summer journey of a steel freighter on the Great Lakes, in more or less the present day. Mamet wrote much of the material 25 years ago, based on his own college-years experiences on a lakeboat, and a full-length stage version was mounted locally to much acclaim at the Tiffany in 1994.
Mantegna does not have an acting role in the movie, but he's not a disappointment behind the camera, with the visual opportunities of the story amply exploited. Filming on a real ship and using the interior and exterior spaces to accentuate the action or mood, Mantegna and cinematographer Paul Sarossy ("X-Men") let the material breathe and the characters roam. Another Mamet brother, composer Bob, contributes a jazzy Chicago-style score that's helpful in the many transitional sequences and generally keeps the mood light.
The story begins and ends with the brief stint of fresh-faced virgin swabby Dale (Tony Mamet), who is in graduate school studying English and seemingly eager for experience and just maybe on the lookout for colorful characters to write about. Well, on the Seaway Queen, there's nothing but cranky guys stuck in routine lives who push each other around verbally but otherwise keep a lid on their collective anomie.
The movie cruises along episodically, with Dale getting to know, in no particular order: sad-sack Joe (Robert Forster), who knows he's one of life's losers; abrasive, tough-loving Stan (J.J. Johnson), who loves to break the rules; weary boss Skippy (Charles Durning), who has much pride; disciplined but cynical firstmate Collins (George Wendt); the creepy but friendly fireman Fireman (Denis Leary); and past-his-prime Fred (Jack Wallace), who has a thing for Steven Seagal movies
Several times, crewmembers speculate on the fate of missing mate Guigliani, with black-and-white fantasy sequences featuring a well-known actor in a surprise cameo and a prostitute (Roberta Angelica). Other stories told by characters are brought to life, but the agenda is frustratingly unfocused. One experiences wicked pleasure from the many hilarious, expletive-loaded exchanges about women, work and life, among other subjects, while waiting for the quieter moments, with Forster in particular delivering a haunted, heartfelt performance.
LAKEBOAT
Oregon Trail Films
In association with One Vibe Entertainment
Director--Joe Mantegna
Screenwriter--David Mamet
Producer--Joe Mantegna, Eric P. Epperson, J.J. Johnson, Tony Mamet, Morris
Ruskin
Executive producers--Eric Epperson, Alan James
Director of photography--Paul Sarossy
Production designer--Thomas Carnegie
Editor--Christopher Cibelli
Costume designer--Margaret Mohr
Music--Bob Mamet
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dale Katzman--Tony Mamet
Joe--Robert Forster
Skippy--Charles Durning
Stan--J.J. Johnson
Fireman--Denis Leary
Fred--Jack Wallace
Collins--George Wendt
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA Rating...
- 4/17/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Not as original or compelling a film as his 1997 prize-winner "The Sweet Hereafter", Atom Egoyan's latest Cannes contender is still a well-crafted, superbly acted work of restrained horror as a young Irish woman on a sad quest is helped and then threatened by a sinister Englishman played brilliantly by Bob Hoskins.
An upcoming Artisan Entertainment release domestically, "Felicia's Journey" was greeted enthusiastically by the press in general, but with such big expectations -- and with the 1994 source novel by William Trevor widely admired -- the critical reception will be mixed and it's doubtful the movie will go far commercially.
Expect Egoyan to take flack in some circles for making key alterations to the book, such as in the character of Hoskins' mother and the truncated final coda, but the film is nonetheless satisfying. Indeed, such an unsensationalistic take on a grim subject, with no violent scenes and a repressively evil lead, calls for the biggest effort on Hoskins' part and the actor comes through with one of his best efforts.
With perhaps too much emphasis on portly caterer Hilditch (Hoskins), a congenial chap to his employees but living alone in his family home/museum, Egoyan dilutes a great deal one's sympathies for pregnant, lovesick Felicia, although Elaine Cassidy ("The Sun, The Moon and The Stars") is just fine in the role.
Daughter of a Republican (Gerard McSorely) who curses her for sleeping with a local boy turned British soldier (Peter McDonald), Felicia is naive but determined to find her lover. She travels on her own from Ireland to the English midlands where she believes he's gone to work in a lawnmower factory.
In a ploy that brings some crowd-pleasing laughs to the otherwise uneasy atmosphere, Egoyan has mild-mannered Hilditch cook gourmet meals with the help of videotapes of his TV chef mother (Arsinee Khanjian). With a horrid French accent, she even employs the youngster in her shows, but these preserved moments are not always pleasant for Hilditch, a serial befriender of needy girls on the road.
He is also a lonely planter of corpses in his backyard, as becomes apparent. Hilditch has more tapes in his collection -- of his past victims -- which provide some of the usual half-dozen narrative threads that Egoyan cuts between in his trademark non-linear style. But more often than not, Egoyan is more literal than he's been in the past and the results are less complex characters and motivations and more predictable cinematic flourishes than in his best works.
The scenes in Ireland with pre-journey Felicia cooing over her handsome beau and then getting the cold shoulder from his mother (Brid Brennan) are more expedient than evocative. Likewise the interlude where Felicia seeks shelter with a Christian mission headed by Jamaican zealot Miss Calligary (Claire Benedict) does not contribute much until the somewhat botched climax.
Paul Sarossy's widescreen cinematography is striking and the sound work is superb, but Mychael Danna's score is often oppressive and the use of songs by Malcolm Vaughn and Kate Bush is disappointingly mundane.
FELICIA'S JOURNEY
Artisan Entertainment
An Icon production
In association with Alliance Atlantis Pictures
CREDITS:
Writer-director:Atom Egoyan
Producer:Bruce Davey
Executive producers:Paul Tucker, Ralph Kamp
Director of photography:Paul Sarossy
Production designer:Jim Clay
Editor:Susan Shipton
Music:Mychael Danna
Costume designer:Sandy Powell
Color/stereo
CAST:
Hilditch:Bob Hoskins
Felicia:Elaine Cassidy
Johnny Lysaght:Peter McDonald
Gala:Arsinee Khanjian
Felicia's Father:Gerard McSorley
Mrs. Lysaght:Brid Brennan
Miss Calligary:Claire Benedict
Running time:114 minutes...
An upcoming Artisan Entertainment release domestically, "Felicia's Journey" was greeted enthusiastically by the press in general, but with such big expectations -- and with the 1994 source novel by William Trevor widely admired -- the critical reception will be mixed and it's doubtful the movie will go far commercially.
Expect Egoyan to take flack in some circles for making key alterations to the book, such as in the character of Hoskins' mother and the truncated final coda, but the film is nonetheless satisfying. Indeed, such an unsensationalistic take on a grim subject, with no violent scenes and a repressively evil lead, calls for the biggest effort on Hoskins' part and the actor comes through with one of his best efforts.
With perhaps too much emphasis on portly caterer Hilditch (Hoskins), a congenial chap to his employees but living alone in his family home/museum, Egoyan dilutes a great deal one's sympathies for pregnant, lovesick Felicia, although Elaine Cassidy ("The Sun, The Moon and The Stars") is just fine in the role.
Daughter of a Republican (Gerard McSorely) who curses her for sleeping with a local boy turned British soldier (Peter McDonald), Felicia is naive but determined to find her lover. She travels on her own from Ireland to the English midlands where she believes he's gone to work in a lawnmower factory.
In a ploy that brings some crowd-pleasing laughs to the otherwise uneasy atmosphere, Egoyan has mild-mannered Hilditch cook gourmet meals with the help of videotapes of his TV chef mother (Arsinee Khanjian). With a horrid French accent, she even employs the youngster in her shows, but these preserved moments are not always pleasant for Hilditch, a serial befriender of needy girls on the road.
He is also a lonely planter of corpses in his backyard, as becomes apparent. Hilditch has more tapes in his collection -- of his past victims -- which provide some of the usual half-dozen narrative threads that Egoyan cuts between in his trademark non-linear style. But more often than not, Egoyan is more literal than he's been in the past and the results are less complex characters and motivations and more predictable cinematic flourishes than in his best works.
The scenes in Ireland with pre-journey Felicia cooing over her handsome beau and then getting the cold shoulder from his mother (Brid Brennan) are more expedient than evocative. Likewise the interlude where Felicia seeks shelter with a Christian mission headed by Jamaican zealot Miss Calligary (Claire Benedict) does not contribute much until the somewhat botched climax.
Paul Sarossy's widescreen cinematography is striking and the sound work is superb, but Mychael Danna's score is often oppressive and the use of songs by Malcolm Vaughn and Kate Bush is disappointingly mundane.
FELICIA'S JOURNEY
Artisan Entertainment
An Icon production
In association with Alliance Atlantis Pictures
CREDITS:
Writer-director:Atom Egoyan
Producer:Bruce Davey
Executive producers:Paul Tucker, Ralph Kamp
Director of photography:Paul Sarossy
Production designer:Jim Clay
Editor:Susan Shipton
Music:Mychael Danna
Costume designer:Sandy Powell
Color/stereo
CAST:
Hilditch:Bob Hoskins
Felicia:Elaine Cassidy
Johnny Lysaght:Peter McDonald
Gala:Arsinee Khanjian
Felicia's Father:Gerard McSorley
Mrs. Lysaght:Brid Brennan
Miss Calligary:Claire Benedict
Running time:114 minutes...
- 5/18/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A difficult, commercially off-putting venture, Paul Schrader's adaptation of Russell Banks' novel nearly matches "The Sweet Hereafter" in its power and darkness.
A superb cast, led by Nick Nolte in one of his most powerful performances, distinguishes "Affliction", to be unveiled by Lions Gate at year's end. Previously shown at festivals such as Venice and Telluride, it most recently screened at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Long on gloominess and moody atmosphere, the film is set in a small New Hampshire town during the dead of winter. Nolte plays Wade Whitehouse, the town's police officer whose main task seems to be acting as crossing guard for the schoolchildren. Moonlighting as a snow plower, Wade is firmly in the pocket of Gordon LaRiviere (Holmes Osborne), the town's small-time power broker.
Wade's personal life is a shambles. He's divorced and exploring the possibility of suing his ex-wife Mary Beth Hurt) for increased visitation rights to his daughter Jill (Brigid Tierney); it seems a pointless quest because the girl can't bear to spend time with him. He's involved in a relationship with waitress Margie (Sissy Spacek) that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And he barely sees his aged parents, especially his abusive father Glen (James Coburn), whose violent ways destroyed the family and drove away Wade's brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe), who narrates the tale.
The plot revolves around the shooting death of wealthy union boss Twombley (Sean McCann), which Wade suspects may not have been the hunting accident it is presumed to be. He begins to play detective, with the chief suspects being Jack Hewitt (Jim True), a local youth and friend of Wade's, and Mel Gordon (Steve Adams), Twombley's rich son-in-law. But the investigation is merely the framework for the deeper story, the near-mythical depiction of the disintegration of Wade's universe and revelation of the scarring his father's abuse (depicted in flashbacks) inflicted on his psyche. By film's end, Wade -- suffering throughout from an all-too-symbolic toothache -- is mired in a web of tragedy and shocking violence.
Schrader, a veteran screenwriter and director of works such as "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", clearly has an affinity for violent, spiritually adrift characters, and he invests his effort with a powerful sense of foreboding and loss. Few other filmmakers would be as uncompromising in their choices, and no doubt the violent emotions in this film will be too much for many to endure.
Unfortunately, Schrader also verges toward excess at times, and "Affliction" suffers from a studied, calculated quality that reduces its impact. That is particularly true of the portentous narration, which doesn't make the impact on film that it no doubt made on the printed page.
Nolte, who also executive produced, gives one of his riskiest performances ever, which is saying something; few actors of his stature would allow themselves to play such an unattractive character. Coburn holds nothing back to great effect as the alcoholic, abusive father, and Spacek is moving as the woman who loves Wade but is ultimately unable to rescue him. Dafoe is effective but wasted in the mostly off-screen role of Wade's absent brother.
Technical credits are top-notch, with Paul Sarossy's cinematography and Michael Brook's musical score contributing greatly to the mood of desolation.
AFFLICTION
Lions Gate
Director-screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Producer: Linda Reisman
Executive producers: Nick Nolte, Barr Potter
Co-producers: Eric Berg, Frank K. Isaac
Based on the novel by: Russell Banks
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz
Composer: Michael Brook
Color/stereo
Cast:
Wade Whitehouse: Nick Nolte
Margie Fogg: Sissy Spacek
Glen Whitehouse: James Coburn
Rolfe Whitehouse: Willem Dafoe
Lillian: Mary Beth Hurt
Jack Hewitt: Jim True
Alma Pittman: Marian Seldes
Gordon LaRiviere: Holmes Osborne
Jill: Brigid Tierney
Evan Twombley: Sean McCann
Mel Gordon: Steve Adams
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
A superb cast, led by Nick Nolte in one of his most powerful performances, distinguishes "Affliction", to be unveiled by Lions Gate at year's end. Previously shown at festivals such as Venice and Telluride, it most recently screened at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Long on gloominess and moody atmosphere, the film is set in a small New Hampshire town during the dead of winter. Nolte plays Wade Whitehouse, the town's police officer whose main task seems to be acting as crossing guard for the schoolchildren. Moonlighting as a snow plower, Wade is firmly in the pocket of Gordon LaRiviere (Holmes Osborne), the town's small-time power broker.
Wade's personal life is a shambles. He's divorced and exploring the possibility of suing his ex-wife Mary Beth Hurt) for increased visitation rights to his daughter Jill (Brigid Tierney); it seems a pointless quest because the girl can't bear to spend time with him. He's involved in a relationship with waitress Margie (Sissy Spacek) that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. And he barely sees his aged parents, especially his abusive father Glen (James Coburn), whose violent ways destroyed the family and drove away Wade's brother Rolfe (Willem Dafoe), who narrates the tale.
The plot revolves around the shooting death of wealthy union boss Twombley (Sean McCann), which Wade suspects may not have been the hunting accident it is presumed to be. He begins to play detective, with the chief suspects being Jack Hewitt (Jim True), a local youth and friend of Wade's, and Mel Gordon (Steve Adams), Twombley's rich son-in-law. But the investigation is merely the framework for the deeper story, the near-mythical depiction of the disintegration of Wade's universe and revelation of the scarring his father's abuse (depicted in flashbacks) inflicted on his psyche. By film's end, Wade -- suffering throughout from an all-too-symbolic toothache -- is mired in a web of tragedy and shocking violence.
Schrader, a veteran screenwriter and director of works such as "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", clearly has an affinity for violent, spiritually adrift characters, and he invests his effort with a powerful sense of foreboding and loss. Few other filmmakers would be as uncompromising in their choices, and no doubt the violent emotions in this film will be too much for many to endure.
Unfortunately, Schrader also verges toward excess at times, and "Affliction" suffers from a studied, calculated quality that reduces its impact. That is particularly true of the portentous narration, which doesn't make the impact on film that it no doubt made on the printed page.
Nolte, who also executive produced, gives one of his riskiest performances ever, which is saying something; few actors of his stature would allow themselves to play such an unattractive character. Coburn holds nothing back to great effect as the alcoholic, abusive father, and Spacek is moving as the woman who loves Wade but is ultimately unable to rescue him. Dafoe is effective but wasted in the mostly off-screen role of Wade's absent brother.
Technical credits are top-notch, with Paul Sarossy's cinematography and Michael Brook's musical score contributing greatly to the mood of desolation.
AFFLICTION
Lions Gate
Director-screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Producer: Linda Reisman
Executive producers: Nick Nolte, Barr Potter
Co-producers: Eric Berg, Frank K. Isaac
Based on the novel by: Russell Banks
Director of photography: Paul Sarossy
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz
Composer: Michael Brook
Color/stereo
Cast:
Wade Whitehouse: Nick Nolte
Margie Fogg: Sissy Spacek
Glen Whitehouse: James Coburn
Rolfe Whitehouse: Willem Dafoe
Lillian: Mary Beth Hurt
Jack Hewitt: Jim True
Alma Pittman: Marian Seldes
Gordon LaRiviere: Holmes Osborne
Jill: Brigid Tierney
Evan Twombley: Sean McCann
Mel Gordon: Steve Adams
Running time -- 114 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
A movie misnomer if there ever was one, "Picture Perfect" is a textbook example of how not to make a romantic comedy.
Sure, it's got all the trappings -- an unlucky-in-love female lead (Jennifer Aniston), a supportive best friend (Illeana Douglas), a wrong guy she takes for Mr. Right (Kevin Bacon), a right guy but she doesn't know it yet (Jay Mohr), a couple of wedding sequences and a generous selection of standards on the soundtrack. But director Glenn Gordon Caron and writers Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky have made one disastrous slip-up: They've neglected to make their protagonist sympathetic.
Despite Aniston's considerable comic charm, her Herculean efforts here just aren't enough to overcome her character's tragic flaw, not to mention the plodding comic pacing and nonsensical plotting.
At the boxoffice, it's not going to be a pretty picture.
A talented ad executive, Aniston's Kate Mosely finds her professional life interfering with her personal life when she discovers her boss, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), won't consider her for a promotion because she's (a) unattached and (b) doesn't own property. Hence, with no tangible responsibilities, there's nothing to stop her from picking up and leaving the firm anytime she feels like it!
Buying into Mercer's logic (and with the filmmakers expecting viewers to do likewise), Kate, with much prodding from colleague Darcy O'Neal (Douglas), fabricates a fiance, offering as evidence a Polaroid taken of her with Nick (Mohr), the nice young videographer at her friend's wedding.
Kate gets her promotion, but when her boss wants to take her and her beau out for dinner, she has to track down Nick and strike a deal with him to play the part -- and then to stage a breakup with her in front of her employer. Meanwhile, Kate has been going hot and heavy with co-worker Sam Mayfair (Bacon), a rogue playboy who's only attracted to unavailable women.
Of course, nothing goes as planned, but after the dust settles, Kate learns what's truly important in life. Or something like that.
The cast certainly does what it can with the material. Aside from Aniston's noble attempts, Bacon plays the part of the swaggering cad with just the right amount of smarm, and Olympia Dukakis pours it on thick as Kate's smothering mother.
Mohr, last seen as Tom Cruise's two-fisted cell phone-calling rival in "Jerry Maguire", is fine as the nice guy with an agenda, but, as written, he comes across more as a plot contrivance than an actual character. The much-needed chemistry between the two is never convincingly generated.
On the other side of the camera, the production values are all certainly serviceable.
PICTURE PERFECT
20th Century Fox
A 3 Arts production
A Glenn Gordon Caron film
Director Glenn Gordon Caron
Screenwriters Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
and Glenn Gordon Caron
Story Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
& May Quigley
Producer Erwin Stoff
Executive producers William Teitler,
Molly Madden
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Larry Fulton
Editor Robert Reitano
Costume designer Jane Robinson
Music Carter Burwell
Casting Mary Colquhoun
Color/stereo
Cast:
Kate Jennifer Aniston
Nick Jay Mohr
Sam Kevin Bacon
Rita Olympia Dukakis
Darcy Illeana Douglas
Mr. Mercer Kevin Dunn
Sela Anne Twomey
Mrs. Mercer Faith Prince
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Sure, it's got all the trappings -- an unlucky-in-love female lead (Jennifer Aniston), a supportive best friend (Illeana Douglas), a wrong guy she takes for Mr. Right (Kevin Bacon), a right guy but she doesn't know it yet (Jay Mohr), a couple of wedding sequences and a generous selection of standards on the soundtrack. But director Glenn Gordon Caron and writers Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky have made one disastrous slip-up: They've neglected to make their protagonist sympathetic.
Despite Aniston's considerable comic charm, her Herculean efforts here just aren't enough to overcome her character's tragic flaw, not to mention the plodding comic pacing and nonsensical plotting.
At the boxoffice, it's not going to be a pretty picture.
A talented ad executive, Aniston's Kate Mosely finds her professional life interfering with her personal life when she discovers her boss, Mr. Mercer (Kevin Dunn), won't consider her for a promotion because she's (a) unattached and (b) doesn't own property. Hence, with no tangible responsibilities, there's nothing to stop her from picking up and leaving the firm anytime she feels like it!
Buying into Mercer's logic (and with the filmmakers expecting viewers to do likewise), Kate, with much prodding from colleague Darcy O'Neal (Douglas), fabricates a fiance, offering as evidence a Polaroid taken of her with Nick (Mohr), the nice young videographer at her friend's wedding.
Kate gets her promotion, but when her boss wants to take her and her beau out for dinner, she has to track down Nick and strike a deal with him to play the part -- and then to stage a breakup with her in front of her employer. Meanwhile, Kate has been going hot and heavy with co-worker Sam Mayfair (Bacon), a rogue playboy who's only attracted to unavailable women.
Of course, nothing goes as planned, but after the dust settles, Kate learns what's truly important in life. Or something like that.
The cast certainly does what it can with the material. Aside from Aniston's noble attempts, Bacon plays the part of the swaggering cad with just the right amount of smarm, and Olympia Dukakis pours it on thick as Kate's smothering mother.
Mohr, last seen as Tom Cruise's two-fisted cell phone-calling rival in "Jerry Maguire", is fine as the nice guy with an agenda, but, as written, he comes across more as a plot contrivance than an actual character. The much-needed chemistry between the two is never convincingly generated.
On the other side of the camera, the production values are all certainly serviceable.
PICTURE PERFECT
20th Century Fox
A 3 Arts production
A Glenn Gordon Caron film
Director Glenn Gordon Caron
Screenwriters Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
and Glenn Gordon Caron
Story Arleen Sorkin & Paul Slansky
& May Quigley
Producer Erwin Stoff
Executive producers William Teitler,
Molly Madden
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Larry Fulton
Editor Robert Reitano
Costume designer Jane Robinson
Music Carter Burwell
Casting Mary Colquhoun
Color/stereo
Cast:
Kate Jennifer Aniston
Nick Jay Mohr
Sam Kevin Bacon
Rita Olympia Dukakis
Darcy Illeana Douglas
Mr. Mercer Kevin Dunn
Sela Anne Twomey
Mrs. Mercer Faith Prince
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 7/28/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A stranger rides into a sleepy mountain town and scares the bejesus out of everyone. Not a spaghetti western, but rather a stirring tale of community solidarity, "The Sweet Hereafter" is a subtle cinematic marvel and should be a serious contender for competition honors.
Lawyers are not a very popular species in this day and age, and in this sobering scenario, Ian Holm stars as Mitchell Stephens, a big-city personal injury lawyer. No grubby ambulance chaser, Stephens is a dignified and sensitive gentleman who carries his own scars. Divorced and devastated by his only daughter's continuing drug addiction, Stephens takes family loss to heart.
It's with this spirit that he heads to a tiny mountainside town in order to "help out" the inhabitants. Indeed, the tiny town has suffered a terrible loss: Its school bus has crashed into an icy lake, killing several of the children. Others have survived but with great personal loss, enduring paralysis, wracking pain and, in some cases, psychological turmoil.
Respectful of the tiny community's anguish and diffident in his approach, Stephens goes about signing up clients. Suspicious of outsiders, especially slickers from the city, the townsfolk are reluctant to enlist his services. To be sure, Stephens' talk of "deep pockets" and lawsuits alarms them and goes against the grain of their self-sufficient sensibilities. Still, their agonies are great and for some, an early settlement does not even meet medical bills.
Cross-cutting through three different time periods, screenwriter-director Atom Egoyan's elliptical tale paints not only a keen psychological portrait of a solitary figure burdened with personal loss, but it marvelously delineates the psychology of a town that has been staggered by the death of its children. Quite wondrously, we see how both Stephens and the town affect each other and we ultimately come to understand and appreciate the reservoirs of strength that both find in dealing with loss.
Coursed with some sinewy psychological fibers and nourished by Egoyan's sense of symmetry, "The Sweet Hereafter" reverberates with compassionate insights. Undeniably, its substance and plottings may prove too elliptical or soft for some observers; nevertheless, the story's delicacy shows the rough nature of healing, be it physical or psychological. Most wonderfully, we see how the organism -- whether the lawyer or the town -- rallies forth its antibodies and, like broken bones that have mended, emerges stronger for the break.
Enriched by Holm's steadfast performance as the aggrieved barrister who tries to atone for his daughter's addicted alienation by bringing something back to the town's families, "The Sweet Hereafter" is a rich testament to man's resilience to rise again from loss. Under Egoyan's balanced hand, the technical team sweetens our experience with deft shadings, primarily cinematographer Paul Sarossy's astute, psychologically packed framings.
THE SWEET HEREAFTER
In competition
Alliance Communication Corp.
Ego Film Arts
Screenwriter-director Atom Egoyan
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Phillip Barker
Editor Susan Shipton
Music Mychael Danna
Cast:
Mitchell Stephens Ian Holm
Sarah Polley Nicole Burnell
Billy Ansell Bruce Greenwood
Sam Burnell Tom McCamus
Wanda Otto Arsinee Khanjian
Dolores Driscoll Gabriel Rose
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Lawyers are not a very popular species in this day and age, and in this sobering scenario, Ian Holm stars as Mitchell Stephens, a big-city personal injury lawyer. No grubby ambulance chaser, Stephens is a dignified and sensitive gentleman who carries his own scars. Divorced and devastated by his only daughter's continuing drug addiction, Stephens takes family loss to heart.
It's with this spirit that he heads to a tiny mountainside town in order to "help out" the inhabitants. Indeed, the tiny town has suffered a terrible loss: Its school bus has crashed into an icy lake, killing several of the children. Others have survived but with great personal loss, enduring paralysis, wracking pain and, in some cases, psychological turmoil.
Respectful of the tiny community's anguish and diffident in his approach, Stephens goes about signing up clients. Suspicious of outsiders, especially slickers from the city, the townsfolk are reluctant to enlist his services. To be sure, Stephens' talk of "deep pockets" and lawsuits alarms them and goes against the grain of their self-sufficient sensibilities. Still, their agonies are great and for some, an early settlement does not even meet medical bills.
Cross-cutting through three different time periods, screenwriter-director Atom Egoyan's elliptical tale paints not only a keen psychological portrait of a solitary figure burdened with personal loss, but it marvelously delineates the psychology of a town that has been staggered by the death of its children. Quite wondrously, we see how both Stephens and the town affect each other and we ultimately come to understand and appreciate the reservoirs of strength that both find in dealing with loss.
Coursed with some sinewy psychological fibers and nourished by Egoyan's sense of symmetry, "The Sweet Hereafter" reverberates with compassionate insights. Undeniably, its substance and plottings may prove too elliptical or soft for some observers; nevertheless, the story's delicacy shows the rough nature of healing, be it physical or psychological. Most wonderfully, we see how the organism -- whether the lawyer or the town -- rallies forth its antibodies and, like broken bones that have mended, emerges stronger for the break.
Enriched by Holm's steadfast performance as the aggrieved barrister who tries to atone for his daughter's addicted alienation by bringing something back to the town's families, "The Sweet Hereafter" is a rich testament to man's resilience to rise again from loss. Under Egoyan's balanced hand, the technical team sweetens our experience with deft shadings, primarily cinematographer Paul Sarossy's astute, psychologically packed framings.
THE SWEET HEREAFTER
In competition
Alliance Communication Corp.
Ego Film Arts
Screenwriter-director Atom Egoyan
Director of photography Paul Sarossy
Production designer Phillip Barker
Editor Susan Shipton
Music Mychael Danna
Cast:
Mitchell Stephens Ian Holm
Sarah Polley Nicole Burnell
Billy Ansell Bruce Greenwood
Sam Burnell Tom McCamus
Wanda Otto Arsinee Khanjian
Dolores Driscoll Gabriel Rose
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/16/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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