Hundreds of years from now, I imagine historians and archeologists, not to mention film preservationists, will spend years and years gazing in puzzled horror at Madonna's body of film. It will evoke feelings similar to the nausea, fear and disbelief we feel now while studying Mayan hieroglyphics of wholesale human sacrifice and ritual slaughter. Only much less interesting, naturally. What is it about Madonna? In movie after movie we have to endure the excruciating process of her struggling with all her might to bring a human emotion to her face. This Herculean labor, brought to its absolute zenith in Evita, but not much abated here, may be great fun for afficionados of porn acting, but for the rest of us: sheer torture. Then there's her voice. She delivers her lines like a tenth-grader playing Hamlet's mother, but with less conviction. Madonna seems entirely incapable of expressing intelligence or emotion, but if she would just let her hair down and act like the good old all-American tramp she is, all might be forgiven. Alas, she seems to have some curious delusions of grandeur. She is the most self-conscious bad actor who ever disgraced a movie screen, and yet she doesn't have the nerve to be camp. Is it possible to be wooden and plastic at the same time? Madonna manages to make Jenna Jameson look like Judi Dench. The movie? Couldn't tell you a thing about it.
Review of The Next Best Thing
