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Lord Runningclam
Reviews
Pay It Forward (2000)
When good actors make bad movies ...
Such a shame -- so much talent went into creating one of the most egregiously mawkish films of the decade (I know it's early in the decade, but believe, I'll be proven right!). The three principles are immensely talented actors: Helen Hunt is a lovely and skilled actress (in other movies); Kevin Spacey is one of the finest contemporary American actors; Haley Joel Osment is one of the finest juvenile actors in Hollywood history. All three struggle mightily to force a third dimension out of their flat, cardboard cutout characters: Spacey, and especially Osment, almost succeed; Hunt, bless her heart, has so little to work with and seems to have been directed as an afterthought, she comes off as a caricature (and a poorly made-up one, at that).
Half of the blame falls squarely on the script, in which events coldly calculated to wrench an emotional response occur merely because the script says they're to happen. The plot lurches forward clumsily as it tries to ring true, driven by a desire to mash our emotional buttons with sledgehammers rather than the characters' motivations. The result: plot holes you could stage the Cirque de Soleil in.
The other half belongs to the director, who is either barely competent or perversely cynical. great effort, it seems, goes into trying to make each moment Hugely Significant, but in the attempts to have them ring true, nothing but sour -- or, as in the case of the ending -- simply wrong notes sound.
Re: The Ending -- (SEMI)SPOILER ALERT!
I won't give away the ending, which is among the worst in Filmdom, but one handy way to save this celluloid treacle from being irretrievable crap is to STOP THE MOVIE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TV INTERVIEW NEAR THE VERY END. Trevor (HJO) has made his Point, Helen and Kevin look on lovingly, and warm fuzzies for everyone in the world. Stopping the movie here raises the film's status from Utter Dreck to Maudlin Mediocrity. Allowing it to play out makes the whole affair offensive and insulting to all but the least discriminating movie-goer.
Angyali üdvözlet (1984)
A masterpiece of modern existentialism
A downbeat, hypnotic retelling of Mankind's story from Adam and Eve to the present, played entirely by children. But don't expect a romp -- these kids are deadly serious as they tackle issues of mortality, religion, and the struggle of class against class. Brilliant photography enhances the deliberate pacing, yet the film is never boring. Literary sources include Emily Dickinson and William Blake, and every line is delivered with full conscious intention. Especially effective is the Byzantium sequence, where a single syllable (homousios, or homoiousios) means the difference between life and death. Seldom has the narcotic influence of religious power been so effectively portrayed. The use of a cast composed entirely of children is a conceit that lends itself to preciousness, but here it succeeds without the least trace of "cuteness". In sum, a daring, challenging, and ultimately worthwhile experiment.
The Secret Life of Girls (1999)
No Big Secret
Good cast -- Linda Hamilton, Eugene Levy, Andy Ducote -- in standard coming-of-age story. Entertaining enough, but strictly by the numbers. Majandra Delfino is the best reason to see this movie -- a strong performance in an otherwise perfectly ordinary movie. Lots of plot contrivances, big set-ups for "clever" lines that get telegraphed hours in advance. The writer apparently thinks putting someone in a weird outfit qualifies them as a genuine eccentric.