I decided to go on a tear of watching ballyhooed releases released over the past year: first, "Babel", next "The Painted Veil", and finally the teddibly British "Notes On A Scandal".
None of them moved me much. They aren't any of them egregiously poor, just not all they're cracked up to be.
Let's babble first about "Babel"--the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, certainly knows how to shoot a film-his camera delivers lustrous, striking imagery and atmosphere, while his sense of pacing is kinetic. But his storytelling technique-following various subplots, seemingly unrelated, which somehow tenuously link up at some stage, is neither a new device nor a particularly effective one: you wonder if the director has A.D.D, or wants us to; or if he could aim to tell just one story well, rather than three or four, where the audience hardly has time to know or care for the characters.
In the grossly over-rated "Crash", there were perhaps one or two vaguely sympathetic types out of scores of miserable lost souls; "Babel" presents the same type of phenomenon. Unlike "Crash" though, the interlocking subplots feel more contrived here. And well-compensated actors like Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett have little to do but look tortured (like us). You can hardly blame Cate- she spends the whole movie in gunshot-induced shock. I wanted to care more about Mr. Inarritu's tragic characters-- but alas, he wouldn't let me.
"The Painted Veil" is a sumptuously photographed period piece that aims for the heart much like the old classics, but again fails to hit its target full-center. Both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts do their best acting school British accents, but this adaptation of a Maugham story feels as forced and frigid as a formal party gone wrong, sort of pallid Merchant-Ivory territory.
Norton plays a nerdy scientist whom Watts marries out of desperation; when she cheats on him with Liev Schreiber (hardly an actor attractive enough to risk cheating for), she is found out and punished in a most unusual way. So we get to sit through a lousy marriage in hostile Chinese territory during a cholera epidemic. Good fun. Yet somehow, yes, redemption is in the air, along with the cholera.
The ending might almost have worked, if not for a tacked-on sequence that's as obvious and calculating as they come. This is another example of how art movies aren't necessarily great films...just decent, that's all, perhaps a notch above the latest tripe from Owen Wilson or Ben Stiller...
Finally, Dame Judi Dench and the much-exposed Blanchett lend their considerable talents to a sordid bit of cat-and-mouse called "Notes On A Scandal". This movie is involving in a twisted sort of way- though you want to wash your hands after seeing it. Meant as a thriller tracking one lonely spinster's manipulation of an emotionally and sexually confused younger one (both teachers), what we witness is a sort of sick feline game which you somehow have to watch but well, you're not too happy about it.
Perhaps most important, the scandal at the center of the film ( the married Blanchett having a torrid affair with a fifteen year old student) just doesn't jibe- perhaps because her character doesn't appear that stupid or vulnerable up to the point the shocking event takes place.
Anyhow, if you prefer your gutters in the best neighborhoods, try "Notes". Otherwise, stick with me on the sidewalk, and we'll find something better.
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