Right off the bat, we need to point out that the acting in this film is superb. Mellow yet strong Rosamund Pike; Dustin Hoffman, the sympathetic father; and Minnie Driver, well, she just works in everything she does. And of course Paul Giamatti, who deserves every one of his accolades as the lead, Barney Panofsky. He manages to pull off one of the greatest challenges an actor faces, playing different ages of the same character (kudos must go to the make-up team here too), and he plays a character that is all at once spiteful, charming, confident and vulnerable. He is, above all, human.
It’s beautifully set and the pace is just as serene, but by the end of the film, we were not quite sure how to react. It felt like we had just witnessed a really good film, but we were left wondering, “what was the point?”
The intrigue is presented to us early on. An aging successful, but bitter, TV exec, Barney, has been in the news due to a book written about his role in the murder of one of his best friends. The exposé has been written by the detective in charge of the case where Barney has plainly walked away a free man. “Ahaaa”, one thinks, “we are now going to get ‘Barney’s Version’ of events and find out the truth about this crime!” We are then whisked away, in the first of many flashbacks, to 1970s Rome and Barney hanging out with a group of artists and bohemians. Curiously though, the initial intrigue mainly takes a backseat to what becomes, essentially, just a tableaux of Barney’s life.
On picking this up in the shop, Fraser saw words on the box like “comedy” and “love of his life” and “Paul Giamatti” and thought fondly of Sideways. But this only has gentle, slightly creepy, romance in it and it is a hard push to call it a comedy in any way (the occasional funny remark is surely not enough or everything would be deemed a comedy!).
The characters feel very real, yet there is little to relate to as the vast majority of the film is about a very affluent set of people, and while Barney comes from humble beginnings (his dad was just a “beat-cop”) we only get vague reference to them. He still gets his big break through a family member which hardly makes it a from-rags-to-riches story. This film is based on a novel, and we wonder if possibly the film adaptation suffers from a lack of inner dialogue; something to further explain the motivations of this character and to give us a hint on the meaning of this story.
Fraser was really looking forward to this one, but with no clear defining theme and no real message it just falls flat. It feels like we’ve just sat looking a really pretty picture for two hours. We suppose that it could be seen as something ambiguous, the rambling journey itself is the thing, but unfortunately for us, it is likely to end up being pretty forgettable. Does that mean we will have to keep it in the cupboard to remind us of the events of Barney Panofsky’s life?
Does it make it into the cupboard? No. Just can’t imagine wanting to watch it again.
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