| REVIEWS ROUNDUP : Closer and A Very Long Engagement |
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| Friday, 18 February 2005 | |
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CLOSER : [6/10] : US-UK 2004 : Mike Nichols : 98mins After a protracted gestation-period, Patrick Marber's 1997 play finally reaches the big screen with mixed results. The movie is, if nothing else, thankfully rather easier to follow than the convoluted theatrical version: over the course of several months, we follow the intertwined love-lives of mid-thirties photographer Anna Cameron (Julia Roberts), late-twenties writer Dan (Jude Law), late-thirties medico Larry (Clive Owen) and early-twenties part-time stripper Alice (Natalie Portman). Although the quartet live and work in a recognisably hectic modern-day London, they inhabit an oddly closed circuit - they seldom interact with, or even speak about, anyone outside of the film's claustrophobic four-hander. It's clear very early on that Nichols and Marber aren't interested in any kind of Loach/Leigh realism: these characters are essentially archetypes, their travails presumably intended to illustrate the emotional problems suffered by modern-day urban sophisticates. But which ‘modern-day' are we being shown here? Though ostensibly updated to 2004 - signalled by the presence of Lord Foster's "gherkin" skycraper on the horizon and "sensitive" singer-songwriter Damien Rice on the soundtrack - Closer still has at least one foot squarely in the ‘cool Britannia' days of 1996-1997 (the theatrical premiere, with Clive Owen as Dan, took place three weeks after New Labour's General Election victory). The internet is "the future," we're told at one point, and fashionable-male Larry tells Alice he was "wearing flares" when she was "wearing nappies." Flares, in 1982? It's easy to forgive such sloppy anachronisms, however, as enough of the film's two-handers (Marber's preferred dramatic mode) carry a considerable punch - especially the extended, electrifying sequence in the ‘Paradise Room' lapdancing club where a down-on-his-luck Larry is taunted and humiliated by the alarmingly-confident working-girl Alice. The artificiality which weighs on so much of the film seems entirely natural in this ultra-artificial environment, and it's no surprise to discover that this was the scene which Marber wrote first, the one from which everything else flowed. Portman and Owen really get their teeth into their vicious backchat, and both received Oscar nominations for their pains (justified, even if Owen's boorish basso profondo does often carry unfortunate echoes of Carry On legend Bernard Bresslaw). At other moments, however, the over-articulate characters' archly ironic non-dialogue ("Toad, frog, lobster - they're all the same") becomes rather too much - rather like being stuck in a lift with obnoxious folk doing their level best to screw up their own lives and make everyone else miserable into the bargain. And while Closer is seldom less than engaging and occasionally quite impressive, by the end you may feel as though you haven't been watching a film at all: more a complex equation being coolly and methodically traced with the brittle chalk of calcified tears. Neil Young 18th February, 2005 seen 10th January, 2005 : Odeon cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) : press show * Anna's show is entitled ‘Strangers' - perhaps ‘I, Anna Cameron' was too arch even for Marber... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT : [6/10] : Un long dimanche de fiancailles : France (Fr-US) 2004 : Jean-Pierre Jeunet : 134mins Having hit the box-office jackpot with the overrated Amelie, the combo of director Jeunet and star Tautou reteam to rather more satisfying effect for this ambitious adaptation of the international bestseller by the late Sebastien Japrisot. Tautou is the lame-but-game Mathilde, who refuses to believe official reports that her long-time boyfriend Maniche (Gaspard Ulliel) has been killed at the front during World War One. She sets out to discover the truth - encountering a variety of oddball characters who may or may not hold clues to Maniche's fate... A Very Long Engagement is itself a rather long film - but it still feels like a slightly awkward condensation of what is presumably a much longer novel: it's often a little difficult to keep track of who's who, and how exactly they fit into the wider sweep of narrative (the gorgeous closing picture-credits come in very handy). In a book the reader can always stop and go back to check on details they may not fully have grasped - there's no such option at the cinema, where the picture's convoluted flashback structure and sheer wealth of incident can often feel a little unwieldy. But this isn't a massive problem, so entertaining are the episodes Jeunet dramatises with his trademark visual elan: from the full-bore Paths of Glory style horrors of the battlefield to a hectic early-20s Paris to Mathilde's idyllic seaside home-village. As so often before, Jeunet often runs the risk of going too far with the tricked-up visuals - here he's influenced by old movies, photos and newsreels, and there's a slight sepia tint to many of the colours and costumes. Though packed with transcendent little grace-notes - and propelled by a fine score from Angelo Badalamenti - the picture is perhaps a little over-busy for the audience to be properly swept along on the central grand, romantic narrative: we're constantly being distracted by some example of Jeunet's bizarre, excessively fertile imagination, or by the script's occasional fondness for twee quirkiness, or by the distracting preponderance of religious symbolism (in what is an emphatically secular tale). It's very refreshing, then, that one of the main supporting characters is as doughily no-nonsense as the marvellous Clovis Cornillac's farmer Benoit Notre Dame - a hapless man-mountain whose death-defying exploits before, during and after his time in the trenches cry out for a feature of their own. A Very Long Engagement is a more than adequate substitute, however: an old-school yarn that keeps us turning its pages right up to the shamelessly tearjerking, tres romantique finale. Neil Young 18th February, 2005 seen 12th January, 2005 : Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) : press show originally rated 7/10, but downgraded after further reflection, 10th Oct 2005 |
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