Of Fairies and the Ticking Crocodile (Being a Review of Finding Neverland, and Other Things Besides)
By David Hontiveros
Johnny Depp’s come a long way from A Nightmare on Elm Street and 21 Jump Street. He’s one of that rare breed of working actor who’s not just a celebrity, he’s also a talented, respected thespian. He manages to star in derivative Hollywood dreck like The Astronaut’s Wife and emerges virtually unscathed. He ended up on the Oscar shortlist, bizarrely enough, because of the film franchise he’s suddenly found himself a part of, Pirates of the Caribbean, a movie based on, of all things, an amusement park ride! He’s collaborated with Tim Burton three times, and has reunited with him for the long-awaited Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well as the stop-motion animation film Corpse Bride. And at the tail end of 2004, he found himself playing J.M. Barrie, the Scottish author and playwright who wrote Peter Pan, in Finding Neverland.
Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.
It’s 1903, London, and Barrie is just coming off his latest play, a resounding flop. His marriage to former actress Mary Ansell (Radha Mitchell) is becoming increasingly strained and loveless. He’s a man in danger of losing himself, when a fateful expedition and romp with faithful hound Porthos, crosses his path with that of widow Sylvia Llewellyn Davies (Kate Winslet), and her sons, George, Michael, Jack, and Peter. What follows quite literally changes all their lives, and becomes the inspiration for Peter Pan.
Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) directs Neverland from a screenplay by David Magee, based on Allan Knee’s play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan.” Forster does a commendable job of handling this moving tale of growth and loss, of hope amidst pain, steering it clear of the overly maudlin, melodramatic waters that the usual Hollywood tear-jerker traverses.
The ingredients are there, after all. Four children bereft of their father. One in particular, Peter (Freddie Highmore), taking the death much harder than his siblings, withdrawing into himself, unwilling to play childish games of pretend. A mother beset by “chest colds.” A domineering grandmother (the still radiant Julie Christie as Davies’ mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier). A troubled marriage. It’s all there, and yet Forster turns in a wondrously magical piece that not only evades TV movie of the week territory, but also makes believers of us all.
In Neverland, the harsh realities of life and the act of living are beautifully counterbalanced by Barrie’s fanciful view of the world, which turns an awkward dance with a dog into a stately fairy tale waltz. It’s to Forster’s credit that these sequences—often Barrie’s playtime with the Davies children—are transformed into subtly wondrous set pieces which are fantastical without being baroque or overly extravagant. In another director’s hands, the CGI would have run wild, the production design would have stolen centerstage. Instead, and paradoxically, the restraint effectively amplifies the wistful nature of these moments, fleeting as they are, like time, and fairy dust.
Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.
However, this being a film “Inspired By True Events,” some fudging is done, particularly with chronology. Whereas in the film, the initial encounter with Davies is in 1903, in reality Barrie met her and her children in 1897, while her husband Arthur was still alive. The events depicted in the latter section of Finding Neverland (which actually occurred in 1910) are likewise telescoped, and the 1902 publication of The Little White Bird—which mentions Peter Pan for the first time in print, before the play opened in 1904—isn’t even mentioned. Thus are the perhaps necessary pitfalls of the dramatization of real-life events. The slow, boring bits are excised, the drudgery of passing time erased, the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile, muted, so the pathos of the moment is magnified.
In cases like this, where history falls prey to drama, all you can hope for is that the spirit of the story is true to the lives of the people it depicts, and here, Forster and crew succeed admirably. Of Barrie’s fervent need to both rediscover a childhood he’d missed the first time around, and to ensure Peter doesn’t experience the same premature adulthood, pitted against the reality that that innocence we must treasure eventually flies away, oftentimes in a single, unheralded instant (the scene where Barrie acknowledges George’s passage into adulthood is a quiet, surprisingly moving moment); that, we are shown, in all its fragility and splendour.
And in the end, this is film after all (a rather good one, it should be emphasized), and not documentary. If facts are what one is after, there are biographies. Film, as with any story, is about drama, and about the paradox of finding truth within that fiction.
In that respect, Finding Neverland has much to impart, about pretense and truth, growth and change, and the possibilities of discovering one’s self in the face of loss.
“Pan, who and what art thou?” he cried huskily.
“I’m youth, I’m joy,” Peter answered at a venture, “I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form.
Quotes from James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Wendy (1911).
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Welcome back to Stepford
by David Hontiveros
Like Keanu in bullet time, Nicole Kidman is dodging bullets as fast as they come.
An injury on the Moulin Rouge set forced her to bow out of David Fincher's Panic Room, which, along with The Game, turned out to be one of Fincher's least notable works. She was also supposed to star in Jane Campion's artily-shot but horribly flawed adaptation of In The Cut; Kidman remained co-producer, even as Meg Ryan ended up in the buff for the role.
At certain points in their development, Kidman was also attached to star in last year's Catwoman and The Forgotten, the less said of both, I believe, the better. Instead, for 2004, she starred in Jonathan Glazer's Birth, and Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives. And though neither was a box-office hit, either one was certainly better than The Forgotten, and, from all I've heard about it, Catwoman as well.
The review for Birth should appear in close proximity to this issue, but for now, we take a look back at The Stepford Wives, in time for its release on original VCD.
The Stepford Wives was originally a novel written by Ira Levin, the same man who gave the world Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski's film adaptation of which, in turn, gave us the enduring, indelible image of a frail, paranoid Mia Farrow, painfully pregnant with the Devil's child, on the run from a cult of Satanists. The Stepford Wives was no less frightening, though here, the terror was not supernatural, but rather stemmed from the realm of science.
A work that studied the horrors of conformity (for which the term "Stepford" has come to mean, informally joining the English language as an adjective), The Stepford Wives had a film adaptation in 1975. Directed by Bryan Forbes, that version delved more into the horror aspect of the tale. Frank Oz's version is, at first blush, a lighter, more comedic look at the material.
Career-driven network president Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) is suddenly and unceremoniously fired after an unfortunate incident during the unveiling of EBS' new season line-up. Following a nervous breakdown, she asks for a chance to start over with her husband Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick) and their two children Kimberly and Pete. Off they go to the suburbs of Connecticut, to the exclusive community of Stepford, where all is not what it seems.
From its opening credit roll, accompanied by visuals from old adverts of the latest in modern technology, of products designed to make life easier and more convenient, it's evident that behind the comedic veneer of the film, there are some serious statements to be made, just as there is something deeper behind the Tupperware smiles of the eponymous Stepford wives.
In that respect, as well as its overt idea of a return to a simpler time-- in Stepford, there is "no crime, no poverty, and no pushing"-- it is similar to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. (Incidentally enough, both are quite possibly last year's most misunderstood and underappreciated films.) But, whereas Shymalan never loses track of his narrative while aiming to get his Message across, Stepford's script by Paul Rudnick seems both weak in its rhythm, and genuinely confused as to the exact nature of the change the women undergo, not to mention rudely dismissive of Joanna's children, who are no sooner introduced, before they completely drop off the face of the film, mentioned thereafter, but never actually seen.
While the Stepford process in the original source material is pretty much straight-forward, in Oz's revision, there is talk of nanochips being inserted into the brain, chips which contain the Stepford program, which should mean these women are still organic after being "perfected" by the treatment. And yet we are treated to the sight of an eyeless and bald mannequin that is Kidman's dead ringer, as well as the ATM sequence (the single most chilling and disturbing visual from the entire film); both incongruous and illogical, if these are really still women with some computer chips stuck in their heads.
Given though that the narrative could have been stronger, the idea of perfection taken to its extreme, of the forced submission and commodification of women-- of a wife as the ultimate consumer product, complete with personalized remote control-- is difficult to ignore. Amidst the scathingly funny one-liners are harsh observations of the gender wars, of, to paraphrase the film, women wanting to become men, and men wanting to become gods.
Arguably, the reversal that comes at the film's climax might be seen, on the one hand, as a clever little reference to the third sequel of the 1975 version. On the other hand though, it could actually subvert the whole piece in one fell swoop, reducing the entire idea of homogenizing the world into the Stepford ideal as a plan born of lunacy, and not a cold, calculated conspiracy.
Whichever the case, this version of Levin's novel, with its wistful, pastel nostalgia for days long gone by, is funny. The script has zingy wit and irony to spare, and with a cast that includes Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, and Glenn Close, the comic timing is near-perfect.
By and large, it's sad and ironic that the film doesn't live up to the Stepford ideal, and isn't the perfect movie it could have been. But then again, as Joanna says, perfect doesn't work. In this case though, imperfect doesn't exactly work, either.
Panned by the critics, by turns confused and narratively-challenged, The Stepford Wives is nonetheless a funny comedy, and has quite a lot to say about men and women, and the world they live in, and if only for that, must be seen. (And honestly, a couple of years down the road, should I find The Stepford Wives and The Forgotten both on cable at the same time, I know which film I'd zap myself to with the remote. Do you?)
The Stepford Wives is available on original VCD from MagnaVision.
by David Hontiveros
Like Keanu in bullet time, Nicole Kidman is dodging bullets as fast as they come.
An injury on the Moulin Rouge set forced her to bow out of David Fincher's Panic Room, which, along with The Game, turned out to be one of Fincher's least notable works. She was also supposed to star in Jane Campion's artily-shot but horribly flawed adaptation of In The Cut; Kidman remained co-producer, even as Meg Ryan ended up in the buff for the role.
At certain points in their development, Kidman was also attached to star in last year's Catwoman and The Forgotten, the less said of both, I believe, the better. Instead, for 2004, she starred in Jonathan Glazer's Birth, and Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives. And though neither was a box-office hit, either one was certainly better than The Forgotten, and, from all I've heard about it, Catwoman as well.
The review for Birth should appear in close proximity to this issue, but for now, we take a look back at The Stepford Wives, in time for its release on original VCD.
The Stepford Wives was originally a novel written by Ira Levin, the same man who gave the world Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski's film adaptation of which, in turn, gave us the enduring, indelible image of a frail, paranoid Mia Farrow, painfully pregnant with the Devil's child, on the run from a cult of Satanists. The Stepford Wives was no less frightening, though here, the terror was not supernatural, but rather stemmed from the realm of science.
A work that studied the horrors of conformity (for which the term "Stepford" has come to mean, informally joining the English language as an adjective), The Stepford Wives had a film adaptation in 1975. Directed by Bryan Forbes, that version delved more into the horror aspect of the tale. Frank Oz's version is, at first blush, a lighter, more comedic look at the material.
Career-driven network president Joanna Eberhart (Kidman) is suddenly and unceremoniously fired after an unfortunate incident during the unveiling of EBS' new season line-up. Following a nervous breakdown, she asks for a chance to start over with her husband Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick) and their two children Kimberly and Pete. Off they go to the suburbs of Connecticut, to the exclusive community of Stepford, where all is not what it seems.
From its opening credit roll, accompanied by visuals from old adverts of the latest in modern technology, of products designed to make life easier and more convenient, it's evident that behind the comedic veneer of the film, there are some serious statements to be made, just as there is something deeper behind the Tupperware smiles of the eponymous Stepford wives.
In that respect, as well as its overt idea of a return to a simpler time-- in Stepford, there is "no crime, no poverty, and no pushing"-- it is similar to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. (Incidentally enough, both are quite possibly last year's most misunderstood and underappreciated films.) But, whereas Shymalan never loses track of his narrative while aiming to get his Message across, Stepford's script by Paul Rudnick seems both weak in its rhythm, and genuinely confused as to the exact nature of the change the women undergo, not to mention rudely dismissive of Joanna's children, who are no sooner introduced, before they completely drop off the face of the film, mentioned thereafter, but never actually seen.
While the Stepford process in the original source material is pretty much straight-forward, in Oz's revision, there is talk of nanochips being inserted into the brain, chips which contain the Stepford program, which should mean these women are still organic after being "perfected" by the treatment. And yet we are treated to the sight of an eyeless and bald mannequin that is Kidman's dead ringer, as well as the ATM sequence (the single most chilling and disturbing visual from the entire film); both incongruous and illogical, if these are really still women with some computer chips stuck in their heads.
Given though that the narrative could have been stronger, the idea of perfection taken to its extreme, of the forced submission and commodification of women-- of a wife as the ultimate consumer product, complete with personalized remote control-- is difficult to ignore. Amidst the scathingly funny one-liners are harsh observations of the gender wars, of, to paraphrase the film, women wanting to become men, and men wanting to become gods.
Arguably, the reversal that comes at the film's climax might be seen, on the one hand, as a clever little reference to the third sequel of the 1975 version. On the other hand though, it could actually subvert the whole piece in one fell swoop, reducing the entire idea of homogenizing the world into the Stepford ideal as a plan born of lunacy, and not a cold, calculated conspiracy.
Whichever the case, this version of Levin's novel, with its wistful, pastel nostalgia for days long gone by, is funny. The script has zingy wit and irony to spare, and with a cast that includes Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, and Glenn Close, the comic timing is near-perfect.
By and large, it's sad and ironic that the film doesn't live up to the Stepford ideal, and isn't the perfect movie it could have been. But then again, as Joanna says, perfect doesn't work. In this case though, imperfect doesn't exactly work, either.
Panned by the critics, by turns confused and narratively-challenged, The Stepford Wives is nonetheless a funny comedy, and has quite a lot to say about men and women, and the world they live in, and if only for that, must be seen. (And honestly, a couple of years down the road, should I find The Stepford Wives and The Forgotten both on cable at the same time, I know which film I'd zap myself to with the remote. Do you?)
The Stepford Wives is available on original VCD from MagnaVision.
The wonderful(ly dark) world of Snicket
By David Hontiveros
Little Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf. Sleeping Beauty is impregnated as she sleeps and wakes to discover she is the mother of twins.
These are just some of the fairy tales (or marchen, as they were called in German) in their original forms, before the Age of Enlightenment dealt them a crippling blow, and Disney all but obliterated them. They’re still there though, these dark, rather adult tales, there for the curious and the enthralled.
Which brings us, in a roundabout fashion, to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is not unlike a dark, traditional fairy tale, though without the magic. What it lacks in spells and cantrips though, Series makes up for in mystery and deaths.
Oh, yes, there are deaths here, children. In fact, the film’s plot is triggered by death.
In one fell swoop, at the hands of a mysterious fire, the Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny) suddenly find they are the Baudelaire orphans, left in the care of frustrated actor—and villain of the piece—Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). What follows is, as the title may suggest, a series of close calls, near-mishaps, and fatalities (both apparent and actual).
Clearly, this is not a Disney family movie, and early on, we are invited by Jude Law—who does a tremendous voice-over job as Lemony Snicket, relating the sad and woeful tale of the Baudelaire children to us—to leave the theatre, if we are expecting light, fluffy cuteness. He actually does this twice, and if by the second time, those of the audience who have no appreciation for the dark and the macabre are still in their seats, then they’ve effectively forfeited any right to complain.
Now, having firmly established its darkling nature, it’s time to examine the film itself.
To begin with, the star of Series is clearly its production design. It has that otherworldly feel peppered with Gothic chic that is Tim Burton’s greatest gift to mainstream cinema. Small wonder, as Series production designer Rick Heinrichs collaborated with Burton on the pretty-to-look-at-but-not-much-else Sleepy Hollow. The world of the Baudelaires is Dickens on absinthe: grand and gloomy, shadowy and cobwebbed, like a skewed cartoon where the figurative animals neither sing nor dance, but stare at you furtively from the nooks and crannies.
Don’t think this is another Sleepy Hollow though. You can actually look at other things aside from the sets. As I’ve already mentioned, Law is excellent here, as is Meryl Streep, as the overwrought, overly neurotic Aunt Josephine. As far back as She-Devil and Postcards from the Edge, Streep proved that she wasn’t just adept at accents and drama; she had a killer sense of the comedic as well, which serves her well in Series, so much so that you wish she had far more screen time than she actually does.
And Emily Browning and Liam Aiken, who play Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, respectively, though not giving breakthrough performances on the level of a Haley Joel Osment, are certainly a sight better than the three Harry Potter principals were in the first film of that franchise. (The comparison arises from the fact that Series is based on the Lemony Snicket children’s novels, The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, enjoying the current wave of popularity kid lit is experiencing in this post-Harry Potter world of ours.)
Given that Count Olaf is a central character to the tale, it’s sad then that the weak link, performance-wise, is Jim Carrey. Let me make it clear though, that I am not the biggest Jim Carrey fan; I find there is a certain tolerance level I have where he’s concerned, which, once crossed, subsequently makes me inured to his antics. In Series, I reached that level rather quickly, so much so that I found I was happiest when Count Olaf was off-screen. The script, with its occasional modern colloquialisms in its dialogue, isn’t much help either. (Of course, it’s tricky telling where the script ends and Carrey’s ad-libbing begins.)
It’s curious that Brad Silberling ended up directing Series, which is so far afield from his most recent film, Moonlight Mile, where Jake Gyllenhaal, Susan Sarandon, and Dustin Hoffman play the fiancée and parents of a recently-deceased woman, coping with their grief and sense of loss. Not only is the scope of Series so much larger than Moonlight Mile (or anything else he’s done for that matter), but the tenor of the piece is vastly different as well.
I bring this up not because Silberling botches the job, but rather because there’s nothing specific and peculiar to the direction of Series that makes it stand apart. For all I know, it could have been Barry Sonnenfeld—who directed The Addamms Family and its sequel, as well as the Men in Black films—at the helm. Perhaps if Series had been allowed to linger a little more on its characters, we might have seen some of the insightful character bits evident in Moonlight Mile. But, preoccupied as the script of Series is with how Violet, the family inventor, gets to McGyver her way out of the latest precarious predicament the dastardly Count has put her and her siblings in, there’s precious little time for those pesky things called “emotions” and “character development.”
Uneven as it is though, A Series of Unfortunate Events is an agreeable piece of macabre entertainment. It’s also a good introduction to the darkly wonderful world of Lemony Snicket. And the cameo by Dustin Hoffman (reunited with his Moonlight Mile director Silberling, and his Kramer vs. Kramer co-star, Streep, though they don’t actually share a scene together) is a nice touch, to boot.
Perhaps if we’d just seen more of the children, and more of Jim Carrey being Count Olaf (as opposed to Count Olaf being Jim Carrey), then we would have discovered characters equally as strange and interesting and darkly delightful as the world they live in.
By David Hontiveros
Little Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf. Sleeping Beauty is impregnated as she sleeps and wakes to discover she is the mother of twins.
These are just some of the fairy tales (or marchen, as they were called in German) in their original forms, before the Age of Enlightenment dealt them a crippling blow, and Disney all but obliterated them. They’re still there though, these dark, rather adult tales, there for the curious and the enthralled.
Which brings us, in a roundabout fashion, to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is not unlike a dark, traditional fairy tale, though without the magic. What it lacks in spells and cantrips though, Series makes up for in mystery and deaths.
Oh, yes, there are deaths here, children. In fact, the film’s plot is triggered by death.
In one fell swoop, at the hands of a mysterious fire, the Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny) suddenly find they are the Baudelaire orphans, left in the care of frustrated actor—and villain of the piece—Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). What follows is, as the title may suggest, a series of close calls, near-mishaps, and fatalities (both apparent and actual).
Clearly, this is not a Disney family movie, and early on, we are invited by Jude Law—who does a tremendous voice-over job as Lemony Snicket, relating the sad and woeful tale of the Baudelaire children to us—to leave the theatre, if we are expecting light, fluffy cuteness. He actually does this twice, and if by the second time, those of the audience who have no appreciation for the dark and the macabre are still in their seats, then they’ve effectively forfeited any right to complain.
Now, having firmly established its darkling nature, it’s time to examine the film itself.
To begin with, the star of Series is clearly its production design. It has that otherworldly feel peppered with Gothic chic that is Tim Burton’s greatest gift to mainstream cinema. Small wonder, as Series production designer Rick Heinrichs collaborated with Burton on the pretty-to-look-at-but-not-much-else Sleepy Hollow. The world of the Baudelaires is Dickens on absinthe: grand and gloomy, shadowy and cobwebbed, like a skewed cartoon where the figurative animals neither sing nor dance, but stare at you furtively from the nooks and crannies.
Don’t think this is another Sleepy Hollow though. You can actually look at other things aside from the sets. As I’ve already mentioned, Law is excellent here, as is Meryl Streep, as the overwrought, overly neurotic Aunt Josephine. As far back as She-Devil and Postcards from the Edge, Streep proved that she wasn’t just adept at accents and drama; she had a killer sense of the comedic as well, which serves her well in Series, so much so that you wish she had far more screen time than she actually does.
And Emily Browning and Liam Aiken, who play Violet and Klaus Baudelaire, respectively, though not giving breakthrough performances on the level of a Haley Joel Osment, are certainly a sight better than the three Harry Potter principals were in the first film of that franchise. (The comparison arises from the fact that Series is based on the Lemony Snicket children’s novels, The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, enjoying the current wave of popularity kid lit is experiencing in this post-Harry Potter world of ours.)
Given that Count Olaf is a central character to the tale, it’s sad then that the weak link, performance-wise, is Jim Carrey. Let me make it clear though, that I am not the biggest Jim Carrey fan; I find there is a certain tolerance level I have where he’s concerned, which, once crossed, subsequently makes me inured to his antics. In Series, I reached that level rather quickly, so much so that I found I was happiest when Count Olaf was off-screen. The script, with its occasional modern colloquialisms in its dialogue, isn’t much help either. (Of course, it’s tricky telling where the script ends and Carrey’s ad-libbing begins.)
It’s curious that Brad Silberling ended up directing Series, which is so far afield from his most recent film, Moonlight Mile, where Jake Gyllenhaal, Susan Sarandon, and Dustin Hoffman play the fiancée and parents of a recently-deceased woman, coping with their grief and sense of loss. Not only is the scope of Series so much larger than Moonlight Mile (or anything else he’s done for that matter), but the tenor of the piece is vastly different as well.
I bring this up not because Silberling botches the job, but rather because there’s nothing specific and peculiar to the direction of Series that makes it stand apart. For all I know, it could have been Barry Sonnenfeld—who directed The Addamms Family and its sequel, as well as the Men in Black films—at the helm. Perhaps if Series had been allowed to linger a little more on its characters, we might have seen some of the insightful character bits evident in Moonlight Mile. But, preoccupied as the script of Series is with how Violet, the family inventor, gets to McGyver her way out of the latest precarious predicament the dastardly Count has put her and her siblings in, there’s precious little time for those pesky things called “emotions” and “character development.”
Uneven as it is though, A Series of Unfortunate Events is an agreeable piece of macabre entertainment. It’s also a good introduction to the darkly wonderful world of Lemony Snicket. And the cameo by Dustin Hoffman (reunited with his Moonlight Mile director Silberling, and his Kramer vs. Kramer co-star, Streep, though they don’t actually share a scene together) is a nice touch, to boot.
Perhaps if we’d just seen more of the children, and more of Jim Carrey being Count Olaf (as opposed to Count Olaf being Jim Carrey), then we would have discovered characters equally as strange and interesting and darkly delightful as the world they live in.
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