Spoilers herein.
Filmmakers like to tinker with genres. That's the most direct and easy path to cleverness. One template is to make two genres into characters, then to embody them in people. When the people interact, you have a battle of film genres. When the people are alone, you have the genre in its normal form. Lynch took this to extremes with "Blue Velvet" of the year or two before. Although the craft is far less here, the ambition is equally advanced.
On the one hand, we have a simple date movie: charming Sally (with her charming girls) has a marriage dilemma. There's some charming humor with making dinner. There's some minor threat to all this sweetness (the threat represented by the big, bad Church), even (gasp!!!) a bad hairdo. But loving husband comes through in the end. Sally is perfect for this, our prototype of absolute earnestness, moving through Lucille redheadedness.
On the other hand we have a genre that has exploded in the past decade: the reflexive film where the performances are about performances, the skits are about skits, the character is schizoid because the position of the actor is also, simultaneously playing the performed and the performer. Here it is a standup comedian whose life and performance are confused. Sally is an archetype but she is also a performer so she finds herself sharing the stage, even contesting the stage with Hanks. Naturally she doesn't need to win, and her genre resolves as planned.
Hanks does need to win. He lives in two layers: the madness of the performer and the madness of the performance: a commonly sought situation for intelligent actors. I call this folding. The whole film is constructed around one scene, the scene in the diner where Sally distances her genre from Hanks; genre and (because he is layered) his character. Watch him try the inside-outside acting shifts that Jack Nicholson invented. Watch him quote one of the most influential films in the folded films movement (for Hollywood), "Singing in the Rain." Watch him even try a few Brando mannerisms.
Its a pretty brilliant idea. And it is pretty inspired and risky acting. Hanks has since become a joke, When he says he made only three good movies, I am certain he has this one in mind. Actually, his thread is bungled by the writer/director. There?s a bad decision in introducing his character with an anatomy test. And his material doesn't match his character: when comedy is a defense against life it is different than lots of what he does, excepting the "hate stylist" notion.
But he really does try here, and it is an intelligent notion.
Ted?s Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.
Filmmakers like to tinker with genres. That's the most direct and easy path to cleverness. One template is to make two genres into characters, then to embody them in people. When the people interact, you have a battle of film genres. When the people are alone, you have the genre in its normal form. Lynch took this to extremes with "Blue Velvet" of the year or two before. Although the craft is far less here, the ambition is equally advanced.
On the one hand, we have a simple date movie: charming Sally (with her charming girls) has a marriage dilemma. There's some charming humor with making dinner. There's some minor threat to all this sweetness (the threat represented by the big, bad Church), even (gasp!!!) a bad hairdo. But loving husband comes through in the end. Sally is perfect for this, our prototype of absolute earnestness, moving through Lucille redheadedness.
On the other hand we have a genre that has exploded in the past decade: the reflexive film where the performances are about performances, the skits are about skits, the character is schizoid because the position of the actor is also, simultaneously playing the performed and the performer. Here it is a standup comedian whose life and performance are confused. Sally is an archetype but she is also a performer so she finds herself sharing the stage, even contesting the stage with Hanks. Naturally she doesn't need to win, and her genre resolves as planned.
Hanks does need to win. He lives in two layers: the madness of the performer and the madness of the performance: a commonly sought situation for intelligent actors. I call this folding. The whole film is constructed around one scene, the scene in the diner where Sally distances her genre from Hanks; genre and (because he is layered) his character. Watch him try the inside-outside acting shifts that Jack Nicholson invented. Watch him quote one of the most influential films in the folded films movement (for Hollywood), "Singing in the Rain." Watch him even try a few Brando mannerisms.
Its a pretty brilliant idea. And it is pretty inspired and risky acting. Hanks has since become a joke, When he says he made only three good movies, I am certain he has this one in mind. Actually, his thread is bungled by the writer/director. There?s a bad decision in introducing his character with an anatomy test. And his material doesn't match his character: when comedy is a defense against life it is different than lots of what he does, excepting the "hate stylist" notion.
But he really does try here, and it is an intelligent notion.
Ted?s Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.