Change Your Image
marc-herbert
Reviews
The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Why would anyone do this to Henry James?
A dreadful version of the great novel. Shame on you Laura Jones. Shame on the director for depicting Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) as a rather plain, uninteresting young woman with a goofy hairdo. What can possibly attract all of those men who want to marry her? And the ending was completely unsatisfactory. A much better way of telling this story, since James' prose is so rich with internal motivations and feelings which cannot easily be revealed by dialogue or even by facial expressions, would be to have voice-over. This would have allowed for a much improved climax. There are only two commendable elements here. One is the cinematography and the other actor John Malkovich, who portrayed a superb Osmond.
K-PAX (2001)
A boring, irritating mess.
This film doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it about Prot (Spacey's character) or is it about the psychiatrist and his coming to terms with his own domestic and professional life? Is it about psychiatric treatment? Is it about the possibility of life on other planets? The ending completely falls flat, as if the writer did not know where to go. How would the Spacey character, a man from the rural backwoods of New Mexico, who apparently (this is not made clear) works in a meat packing plant for a living, come to be able to speak so eloquently and so knowledgeably about life and the cosmos? And why would he travel to New York? Totally unbelievable. A boring, irritating mess.
Bonjour tristesse (1958)
The book is better.
First, one of your commentators remarked that the Riviera looked great. I do not believe Preminger filmed it there. The site was probably Lake Tahoe, with a few shots taken in the south of France, of course, to add authenticity. Interiors were all made on Hollywood sound stages. The book is far more subtle and carefully crafted than the screenplay. Near the end, when Anne discovers Raymond and Elsa together, she overhears him saying several deceitful and insensitive remarks, remarks that portray him as shockingly depraved. The book does not reveal those remarks to us; we continue to think of Raymond as, well, yes, promiscuous, but basically charming and decent.