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From the same
director of Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze), comes the story of the
screen writer who is tasked to rewrite a novel of substance and integrity
in a Hollywood that wants action, love, plot and formula.
Normally, I hate stories of "the writer" (it seems too easy) but this
isn't bad at all because it's done in an original way. What's fresh?
The filming (opening and closing with stunning scenes of nature), the
characters (ex. Nick Cage plays an aging, fat, bald screen writer and
his twin brother foil), the ideas (orchids, passion, evolution, love
and loss), and the dialogue (the characters keep us entertained purely
by what comes out of their mouths).
Still, I can't help writing this review with a bit of hesitation to
say it's a "great film," I was entertained but not floored. It seemed
to wrap itself up too neatly in the end, to betray itself, like the
main character has been doing all his life, unable to escape his fate,
he "grows," finds a moral, t hen love and then some people die in a
car chase. I would recommend this movie highly, but find many flaws
in it as well. Again, I hate these "I am the writer, I have writer's
block" stories. I suppose if you're a screenwriter you'll love it, maybe.
The screenwriter of this one seems to have a lot of talent, writer's
block and a narcistic obsession with his own neroses.
The film is about adaptation, ok, but it's also about masterbation :
physical, emotional and intellectual. It's comic, I suppose, to watch
a balding, fat Nick Cage masterbate and then to hear this aging screen
writer bang his head against his typewriter and say touching remarks
about his own evolutionary inadequacies (It is also comic to watch his
foil : a sleek writer from the New Yorker who, in the rubble of her
high profile marriage, falls for a sleezy swamp crawling orchid-seeker),
but it's also a little morbid and sad. What the hell kind of story is
that anyway? A real one, I suppose. The question is this : Do we really
want that much reality presented in a Hollywood format, i.e. wrapped
up nicely in the end? Some adaptation might be required for the public
to fall in love with this strange swamp flower.
As a consolation prize for his betrayal of his own artistic principles,
the screenwriter forces a vague and SLIGHTLY unhappy ending (God forbid
that the girl fall into the hero's arms in the final scene!)... So,
for the plot, we are forced into slight satisfaction, in ways that we
are already familiar with (she might, probably will fall into those
arms). It's like trying to make a "foie gras burger" with ketchup to
be taken away at the drive-through: it's made of good ingredients (actors,
writing, directing) but doesn't fit the format, so when it is stuffed
down so fast, it leaves a lump in our throats and a strange aftertaste
for days.
Andrew
F.
version
française
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