My wife and I kept asking each other whether we wanted to continue watching this movie. At 2/3 of the way through, she bailed, and I reset the VCR to tape over the whole thing with Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, which was coming on the next morning and is another kettle of fish.
The reasons wife and I bailed on Miami Blues is much like other films that affect an arch knowingness or a hipper-than-thou irony. In brief, there's no hero or heroine with whom to identify. Young Alec Baldwin looks great but basically overperforms everything. Yes, he develops some character tics (e. g., pulling hard on bottled beer, going shirtless, rapidly reversing tone). Maybe it's a great performance of a psychotic, but ultimately psychotics don't reward the attention they require. As for Fred Ward . . . Well, just as undoubtedly there are psychotics in this world but psychosis isn't necessarily interesting in and of itself, there are false teeth in this world, but it's not clear what pleasure or charm is derived from constantly attending to Ward's false teeth. For most of the film the detective he plays is beat-up and helpless, leaving little time for any positive character development.
Baldwin and Ward are both good working actors, but Jennifer Jason Leigh is great. (I recommend the under-regarded Washington Square.) Her scenes are easily the most luminous of the film, but her character is repeatedly denigrated and disappointed. One would follow her, but there's nowhere much to go.
The main reason we watched as far as we did was probably the film's outstanding visual quality. Each outdoor scene is shadowless, with the actors seeming ready to break or bulge out of the screen. The film was almost painfully lovely to look at, and I might have finished watching just for the sake of the cinematography--a rare film that might have been better in an unknown language. As things stood, I feared something terrible would happen to the one sympathetic character (Leigh). I'm not particularly squeamish, but I'm not going to prove how tough or cool I am when no redeeming purpose is in play. Most of the posted responses to this film are more indulgent than mine. I'm glad I didn't finish watching Miami Blues, I wish I hadn't seen what I did, and I hope writing this note helps me forget about it, without discredit to Leigh or its production values.
The reasons wife and I bailed on Miami Blues is much like other films that affect an arch knowingness or a hipper-than-thou irony. In brief, there's no hero or heroine with whom to identify. Young Alec Baldwin looks great but basically overperforms everything. Yes, he develops some character tics (e. g., pulling hard on bottled beer, going shirtless, rapidly reversing tone). Maybe it's a great performance of a psychotic, but ultimately psychotics don't reward the attention they require. As for Fred Ward . . . Well, just as undoubtedly there are psychotics in this world but psychosis isn't necessarily interesting in and of itself, there are false teeth in this world, but it's not clear what pleasure or charm is derived from constantly attending to Ward's false teeth. For most of the film the detective he plays is beat-up and helpless, leaving little time for any positive character development.
Baldwin and Ward are both good working actors, but Jennifer Jason Leigh is great. (I recommend the under-regarded Washington Square.) Her scenes are easily the most luminous of the film, but her character is repeatedly denigrated and disappointed. One would follow her, but there's nowhere much to go.
The main reason we watched as far as we did was probably the film's outstanding visual quality. Each outdoor scene is shadowless, with the actors seeming ready to break or bulge out of the screen. The film was almost painfully lovely to look at, and I might have finished watching just for the sake of the cinematography--a rare film that might have been better in an unknown language. As things stood, I feared something terrible would happen to the one sympathetic character (Leigh). I'm not particularly squeamish, but I'm not going to prove how tough or cool I am when no redeeming purpose is in play. Most of the posted responses to this film are more indulgent than mine. I'm glad I didn't finish watching Miami Blues, I wish I hadn't seen what I did, and I hope writing this note helps me forget about it, without discredit to Leigh or its production values.