nathan19 Reviews

Bugsy (1991)

Admirable but flawed

[20 May 2003]

The world is full of dreamers, men and women who see not just what exists, but what is possible. Bugsy Siegel, as depicted by Warren Beatty in "Bugsy," is just such a dreamer -- a conflicted, passionate man whose visions far outstrip his reality. A man who lives half his life in the shadows and fog of the movie industry, he dreams bigger dreams than even he could achieve, and is ultimately destroyed by them.

Unfortunately, in attempting to capture the life and times not only of Bugsy Siegel, but also the Hollywood era of the 1930s and -40s, as well as the gangster era of the same time, the film sacrifices any sort of narrative flow in favor of a series of handsome vignettes that, while admirable when taken separately, overall do not add up to very much.

The biggest flaw is the lack of a coherent story. The film is a straight chronological telling of the latter years of Siegel's life, but it tries to cram too much into too small a space. As a result, we watch events but never characters. Witness, for example, the divorce scene: we watch as Ben divorces his wife, and watches his family get into a cab, never to be seen again -- but because we have never seen the family interact, we never feel anything in the scene. Ben is never a character you can feel anything for -- in part because the movie depicts his actions, without ever explaining them. We know that Ben is a dreamer because he comes up with the idea for "Vegas" -- but how or why is never explained. We know that he likes glitz because he buys a home for a ridiculous price at the start of the film -- but how or why is never explained. Ben is an enigma, and we never come to understand the motivations that would turn him into a tragic, compelling character.

The same can be said for Virginia Hill. We know that she has slept around because everyone says so -- but why is never explained. For a Hollywood actress, we never see her pursue her world. She is simply, arbitrarily taken from her world into Ben's, and we never see or learn about the personal cost. Her character veers from one extreme to the other with Ben, at one point slapping him, then making love with him on the dining room floor. But why does she love him? Ben's lack of depth makes for a relationship that is beautifully photographed, but as hollow as the Hollywood era the movie depicts. Even her choice at the end is poorly executed -- why does she return to the man she has spent half the film loving, half the film loathing?

These central problems are frustrating, because there is so much potential in "Bugsy." The cast is superb, and under the stylized direction of Barry Levinson, the film achieves a certain glow as it depicts the world of yesterday. But all the stylistic choices in the world can't make up for the fact that this is a sprawling canvas with far too little paint.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Adjusting perceptions

[22 January 2002]

As most are at least aware of the story of "A Beautiful Mind," I see no reason to re-cap. The tale of John Forbes Nash has been brought beautifully to the screen, with much tenderness, compassion and grace. It is ultimately an exhortation to adjust our own perceptions -- to see the world not just as it is, but as it can be.

The film is full of changing perspectives. Nash already sees the world in a different light when we first meet him -- as the film goes on, he begins to adjust himself, to conform to the human race, to learn of love and compassion. We watch him warm up to his Princeton compatriots, and see his heart open to Alicia. Not only this, but Alicia must change her perspective as well. In the midst of John's bumbling proposal, Alicia says, "I need to adjust my girlish notions of romance," and later on, while dealing with her husband's illness, tells a friend that when she is faced with the man as he is, she learns to open her eyes and see him as the man he was..."and suddenly I become that man's wife."

It would be easy for a film such as this to draw Nash's mental struggles and triumphs with a black-and-white brush -- the demons he face must be conquered, and he must overcome them. Instead, the film bravely squares the notion that perhaps (in the words of Norman Bates) we all go a little mad sometimes... and that it is a braver thing to live with your demons than to eliminate them. (This side of glory, what hope do we have of getting away from the demons which haunt us all?) As Nash says towards the end of the film -- "they're still there, I just choose to ignore them." By refusing to demonize paranoid schizophrenia, the film casts the notion that, just perhaps, the line between sanity and insanity is not as fixed as it appears, and therefore those who struggle cannot be demonized or marginalized, but instead given the grace they need to survive.

Perhaps those among us who struggle with their own demons, are in need not of extensive therapy and violent treatment -- it's clear in the film that such treatment marginalizes and reduces Nash -- but instead of understanding, tenderness, and love. I do not wish to minimize the plight of those who struggle with mental illness -- sometimes a straitjacket is as much a protection of them from us as it is the other way around. With family members myself who struggle with varying degrees of mental illness, I know that love isn't all you need. However, there is perhaps more of a need for it in the world than we are willing to give.

Ultimately, the film is a testimony of and about grace. Nash, by all accounts, is a wretched soul, lonely, brilliant, tortured. There is no immediate reason why any one should love him. But it is the grace (undeserving favor) of Alicia that draws him in, that holds him in the midst of his personal Hell, and which gives him the strength he needs to be what he can. May it be so of all of us.

Supergirl (1984)

Supergirl -- Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

[24 April 2001]

The amount of material on this DVD should rank "Supergirl" as a top-draw product. When considering that the two-disc treatment puts it on a format scale with "The Abyss", "T2," "Gladiator," and "Armageddon" (blockbusters of varying artistic quality), it is a shock to realize that the film itself is only of the slightest entertainment value whatsoever.

The film was released in 1984 in a highly truncated version, eliminating at least 10 minutes from the 124-minute international cut, and 10 additional minutes from the Director's Cut. Both the international and Director's versions are here, as are trailers, previews, interviews and commentaries. A deluxe treatment this, if only the film were of any value whatsoever.

Jeannot Szwarc has had a middling career at best -- highs include the derivative "Jaws 2" (1978) and the overlooked "Somewhere in Time." (1980) It is unclear how Mr. Szwarc continues to find work, as there seems to be a vast disconnect between his aspirations and his reality. One cannot fault Mr. Szwarc for this, however, as other filmmakers have gotten farther with less. (Are you listening, Mr. Verhoeven?) The aspirations behind his film here are noble, attempting to set up a modern-day "Wizard of Oz." There are moments (a few) where the film succeeds, most notably in the truly balletic scene where Kara/Supergirl first discovers her ability to fly. The aerial movement which follows is amazing in its tenderness -- it is a welcome contrast to the action which accompanied the "Superman" films.

Unfortunately, the script fails to execute properly. When the most dramatic scene in the film is a tractor run amuck, we know something is wrong. While Superman saved the world from nuclear weapons, Supergirl is left to save a small town from fascistic rule by a homegrown witch? Why didn't she simply fly to the state capital and call down the National Guard? The character and the myth is too large for the film which holds it. The romance between Kara and Ethan is equally painful. While feminizing the hunk (he faints a LOT) paints an interesting picture of the first "him-bo", the execution again is painful, as our complete lack of interest in the character renders him annoying (at least Lois Lane had some spunk).

Playing into the witchcraft aspect could have provided us with an interesting supernatural/spiritual contest. (After all, Superman never had to face the devil, although the script for "Superman IV" must have had Faustian influence to have been made in the first place.) However, the payoff never comes. If Selena had truly tapped into ultimate power, again, why would she stay in East Podunkville? If her aspirations truly were for world domination (and again, we would have liked to have understood why), why don't we ever see her actually conquering the world?

Overall, the package for this DVD is amazing, certainly ranking it among the top tier of DVDs. The set may be worth keeping only for documenting how admittedly noble ideals (long before there was the Slayer, there was the Supergirl) can conspire to make a truly horrible film.

Jaws 2 (1978)

Second verse, same as the first!

[19 December 2000]

...But what is most tragic, is that it didn't have to be so.

Originally, the script for "Jaws 2" had a much different emphasis, which is WHY so many of the original principles returned. (Even Spielberg and Dreyfuss wanted to be involved, but they were marooned on reshoots for "Close Encounters" and the studio moved forward with an arbitrarily-set-in-stone release date of 1978, which directly conflicted with Spielberg's first sci-fi film.) The storyline was meant to have less emphasis on the shark attacks, and more emphasis on the characters. In the original scripts, Brody is still haunted by the shark (much less composed than he is at the beginning of "Jaws 2"). The Brody boys are a little younger (Mike is 15 instead of 17, making for greater continuity), and Brody has fought hard to keep them out of the water (Mike has hydrophobia as a result of the events in the first film). The Mayor has brought in condominiums, but with the condos has come mob corruption in the town. Brody has given up the ghost, so to speak. The shark attacks were few and far between, and the final attack on the sailing party was actually an attack on a regatta which the teens were participating in. A baby seal marooned on the beach after its mother is killed by the great white is taken in by Sean.

Details like these are what clearly invited the actors back. The studio however got cold feet, and realizing that they could make a killing (pun intended) by attracting the teen audience, had the script rewritten, emphasizing death and teens-in-peril ... the first but not the last example of a studio pulling in the reins on a production. Even the film as it stands is not necessarily trite -- although the presence of a new great white is never fully explained. (The closest we get is Brody's "you don't think that another great white..." followed by, "Sharks don't take things personally, Mr. Brody." But Dreyfuss' territoriality rationale from the first film works better, and is more believable -- if one shark dies in a bountiful feeding ground, another could just as easily swim in to take its place.) Nice character moments include Brody's psychotic run on the beach, and coming home after being fired -- Scheider's eyes alone tell stories of where Brody has been, and where he is going. Scenes like these elevate the film from its otherwise "let's watch 'em get eaten" storyline.

Finally, a minor quibble -- in a horror film, characters should never say lines like "I'm bored," as the old man in the sea does. Also, the teens on the boats are allowed to look bored as well. If characters in a movie are bored, so will the audience.

Shaft (1971)

$13,000 goes a long way, baby.

[19 June 2000]

The fables about this film are legendary -- paying Richard Roundtree $13,000 for his starring role, Isaac Hayes' funky score, the walls which shake and tremble as if they were thrown up just before filming -- as well as the deeper controversies of a black streetwise detective going up against the White establishment and black mobsters while making love to white and black women alike. Probably much more electrifying in its initial 1970s release, the film is dated now, and looks it -- cheaply shot, poorly acted, and amusingly scripted. It's difficult to tell if the screenwriter took the film seriously with lines like "Where are you goin'?" "I'm goin' to get laid, where are YOU goin'?" The film is now legendary more for its amusing blaxploitation elements. But legendary it is...

Scream 3 (2000)

Well-done summary of the film series.

[7 February 2000]

There are those who criticize the film's finale, and while I have to admit that I found the ending convoluted, and the identity of the killer anticlimactic (the killer removes the mask, the music swells... and my friend and I had to look at each other and say, "Hey, uh, is that..."), I had the same reaction to the second film. It is really only the first film that provides any kind of "shocking" revelation, which really isn't such a shock to begin with since the killer has been identified throughout the film. Thus the "Scream" series is composed not of whodunnits but howdunnits. The thrill here is not the revelation, it's the pulse-pounding moments leading TO the revelation.

I felt the film's strength was emphasizing Sidney's being haunted by her mother. The moments in the film with her nightmares was easily more frightening than the cheap slasher techniques otherwise employed (which were still far better done than other films in this genre). While the first two "Scream"s only alluded to Sidney's demons, it was a much stronger step to actually see Sidney being stalked by her own fears. In this way the film seems to have transcended the genre. Less well-done was the social commentary attempted in the film's climax -- the self-referential argument the filmmakers use in the early part of the film as a justification for the violence of their film seems too pointed, perhaps even defensive. And the killer's final comments definitely leave a bit to be desired, taking what is a satire and turning it into heavy-handed commentary. But this has always been this series' modus operandi.

The mother link is interesting to follow through the film (and through the series), and perhaps says something about modern expectations of feminism. The mother starts out idealized in the first film, until she is finally demonized in the final film, as a ghost, as a walking corpse, and (in the incredibly eerie close up of her picture with Sidney) a preying killer. It seems that the mother is herself haunting Sidney throughout the film, beyond what is stimulated by the killer. The point seems to be muddled -- in the first film, the perfect image of femininity is deconstructed as the mother is killed because of irrepressed sexual desire (sexual infidelity). In this film, the mother is further deconstructed, but the other way -- she has now been killed in no small part because of her attempts in the past to become an independent woman -- pursuing a career in films that has only led to disgrace and personal moral bankruptcy. Sidney starts out as a girl holding to her mother's ideal, only to see that destroyed. Now she watches as her mother as a career woman is also destroyed. What role is left for Sidney to play as a woman? The reversion to the idealized situation at the end of the film is bizarre. Suddenly the few surviving cast members are back in a perfect world, one that seems almost surreal when compared with the rest of the film. Perhaps the point is that throughout the film series Sidney has been projecting her issues into that of a film world -- but where film ends, where the black and white characters stop, life begins. Ironic in a horror movie series. Is it pretentious to write this way about a film that is itself self-aware?

All I know is, I threw popcorn seven times in the theater, I was so scared. Especially during the first hour.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Artifice, art, and Edward.

[18 January 2000]

Film students often point out that Tim Burton's work usually contains an autobiographical edge. I don't know very much about Mr. Burton, but it does seem that his most successful films usually involve several key elements -- the somber protagonist more often than not clad in black, at odds with the world around him, in love with an unattainable woman, and passionately devoted to a particular craft. "Batman"'s Michael Keaton, Johnny Depp's Ichabod Crane, and Depp's Edward Scissorhands all share these qualities, but Scissorhands seems to come the closest in not only exploring the psychoses of the main character, but also exploring the line between the artist, his craft, and its audience.

Into the happy world of domesticity comes Edward, a man clad in black leather, with scissors for hands. Standing out amidst the monotony of suburbia, his presence immediately causes a stir among the local townspeople. When Edward begins trimming the gardens, then the hair of the dogs, and finally the hair of the women in town, he goes from certified mystery man/freak to local celebrity, on the basis of a gift he himself does not seem all that impressed with. (He expresses a desire to have normal hands.) His joy comes not from creating, but from seeing the joy creating gives to others. All Edward wants to be is accepted, especially by Kim (Winona Ryder). His art is a means to an end. Through a series of tragedies however, Edward moves from celebrity to has-been to criminal. Eventually forced to flee domestic life, he wreaks havoc on the local townspeople, destroying the work he created and thereby inciting the town to riot. At the end of the film, he is left alone, creating in solitude, designing ice sculptures to the one woman he has loved, and yet can never have.

The film's theme of a misunderstood genius who only wants to be loved is certainly unoriginal. What is interesting is that it is imbibed with meaning by a filmmaker whose own life mirrors that of its protagonist. Burton's quirky early work ("Frankenweenie," "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure", "Beetlejuice") became art-house successes that led to commercial success and paved the way for 1989's "Batman," a critical and commercial blockbuster. Burton never sought the kind of commercial success that "Batman" afforded him, going on record in interviews stating that he preferred more personal statements as opposed to the big franchise success a "Batman" film would give him -- artifice as opposed to art. There was obviously an audience primed and ready for Burton's take on the world, however -- both his Batman films, "Nightmare Before Christmas" and even "Edward Scissorhands" were critical and commercial successes. But, like Edward in the film, it is only a period of time before a misunderstood genius becomes just that -- misunderstood. Thus both Burton's next two films -- "Ed Wood," an homage to the brilliant (or brilliantly insane, take your pick) director, and "Mars Attacks!" -- were commercial duds, the second resoundingly so. The artist had apparently fallen out of favor with the public, refusing to do a third "Batman" film or simply grind out "hits". With "Sleepy Hollow," Burton seems to have regained a measure of the audience's approval without sacrificing his values.

The fear of any filmmaker, or any artist, is the audience's approval, or lack thereof. Any artist who creates for a mass audience relies on that audience to keep him funded, particularly in the film industry, where you are only as good as your last film's box office receipts. Sooner or later, if your films lose money for the studios, you will find yourself without the opportunity to create, and although you could shoot on Super-8 for your family, if you have the drive to express yourself through film, you want people to be exposed to your work. The audience however is frequently blown by opposing and contradictory winds -- what is popular this month is next month's old news. The audience for Edward's work in "Scissorhands" is initially intrigued by his eccentric designs, then turned off by them as new fads come along (Edward asks Meg's brother Kevin to play "rocks scissors paper," to which Kevin replies, "It's boring!"). When a filmmaker dares to put across a piece of personal work, the rejection of the audience is even harder to take -- in the film, Edward cannot detach himself from his hands, they are a part of him -- thus when the townspeople reject his work and begin to regard him as a freak, it is incredibly personal, especially for someone who has only sought approval.

Yet even in this, the film offers hope. As the townspeople begin to turn from Edward, Kim begins to see Edward as more than a freak. She begins to see his heart -- and slowly but steadily falls in love with him. The most tender moment in the film is when she asks him to hold her, and (in a scene that would be comical in any other film, but here plays as tragically as Romeo losing his Juliet) Edward holds up his "hands" and says, "I can't." In a moment of trust, she steps past the hands that people once loved but now revere, and puts her arms around him. What matters is no longer the superficial appreciation of an audience that was never meant to appreciate the work (all they cared about was what it could do for them -- it becomes a sign of status to have hair cut by Edward), but the sincere appreciation of someone who has come behind the work, and loved the man as he is.

If the film is a highly personal statement by Mr. Burton about the art and craft of filmmaking, vs. the business and artifice it can breed, it is a powerful one by a director who (at that time) was a top box-office draw of hope that filmmaking could be personal first and foremost, rather than being just a homogenized piece of entertainment. (The continued success of razzle-dazzle franchises and slam-bang action films must disappoint him.) One however doesn't need to psychoanalyze the film or its director in order to appreciate "Edward Scissorhands" as a sweet, aching, poetic look at love, from the perspective of a young man who, despite his handicap, only wants to be loved the same way as everyone else is.

Any Given Sunday (1999)

Epic, sprawling exploration of America's true pastime.

[10 January 2000]

"Any Given Sunday" has a far-reaching ambition (nothing Oliver Stone does is ever lacking in ambition). In its attempt to unravel the game of football, in its exploration of the game from the field, the sidelines, and the offices, it says much more about the fans of the game than it does about the game itself. The pressures that the players feel is real, much more pronounced here than it was in "Jerry Maguire." We (the fans) put these players into positions where the game is not as important as the endorsements, the behind-the-scenes wrangling. The crowd sows the seeds of the very corruption of the game it watches. The players thus put on a performance not only to the crowd, but also to the dollars that the crowd is willing to spend. The film criticizes the crossroads that the sport sits on, where competition for dollars corrupts the pure competition espoused by the quote at the beginning of the film.

Given that the game's very point is entertainment for the crowd, it is ironic that in the film, the only time characters are able to pull off big plays is when they completely shut out the audience around them -- Coach D'Amato (Al Pacino) tells Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx) at the film's beginning to focus on the game at hand, to forget everything and remember back when the game was played "in the hood." It's the inability to forget the crowd that leads to Foxx's perpetual vomiting; when "Cap" Rooney (Dennis Quaid) goes down, we watch him disappear into the crowd's faces; and it's the desire to perform for the crowd that leads to the rampant egos we see throughout the film, as well as the moral ambiguity of many of the characters (Dr. Mandrake -- played by James Woods -- especially, but not exclusively, as Matthew Modine's character faces a similar moral dilemma, and we are not sure what his final action is).

The film frequently uses the shot of fading into the crowd's faces -- the players lose themselves in the crowd they are playing to, and collapse. Each character's moral barometer is based on his/her willingness to play to the crowd; when Cap, the moral component of the old guard, collapses physically, after losing himself in the crowd, it is a sign of the fate that befalls each character internally. Whether morally or physically, each character loses themselves in the crowd, not in the game -- and it's only when they take themselves out, when they step out, that they are able to come to grips with why they are doing what they're doing. Cap takes himself out of the game -- Willie is taken out -- at the end, Pacino takes himself out -- and it is only when this happens, that they are able to deal with the motivations that drive them forward. WHY they play the game and live the lives they do.

The film's intensity and length is necessary in order to fully invest ourselves in the lives of these characters. Unless we feel the intensity they do on the field (which Stone accomplishes through a pumped-up soundtrack, quick cuts and flash shots), unless we see the sordid underside of the game (Pacino consorts with a prostitute, his owners undermine his decisions, the team is rife with tensions, both racial -- note the sequence in the locker room with combating music -- and personal), we have no idea about the lives they lead. Stone's point is not to criticize the game or its players -- it's just another component to American life, just as is the financial district of "Wall Street", the music of "The Doors," and the political worlds of "JFK" and "Nixon." Stone's desire is instead to hold up a window for our consideration -- this is a world we fund, a world we want to see on Monday Night Football, and these are the men and the women we call "heroes." Stone shows us the pressures they are under to perform. He does not present them as woeful cry-babies -- they are given a job to do, and are expected to do it. But the film considers the cost and the price of fame -- and asks us to consider the fact that, in our quest to set up heroes (only to forget them when their playing years are up), we are sacrificing both the souls of these men, and our own. Our ethos is, "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Yet we remember only the winners; the losers go home physically and emotionally ruined. We are each faces in the crowd -- and even in the film's climactic scene, the film audience becomes a football one, rooting for our "heroes." Stone puts us into the position of the crowd in the film... and then wonders if we should enjoy being there.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Duality makes this film an heir to Hitchcock's classics.

[9/10 · 3 January 2000]

Duality -- the ability to be one person in a certain situation, and another in another -- is the underlying and pervading theme of "The Talented Mr. Ripley." It is a theme that sparks the central conflict of the picture, that influences each of the main character's decisions and actions. Each character in the film is either pretending to be something else, or playing directly to a superficial identity. The film unravels each of the character's motivations for doing so, and in so doing strips away the layers of reality we construct for ourselves. Characters either uncover the explicit duality of their lives (Cate Blanchette's willingness to admit that she travels under another name), or have it uncovered for them (Tom Ripley). When each character is laid bare, when each character is most fully themselves, when each character stops acting and pretending, they are undone.

The film presents a main character who does his best to pursue another life -- but he cannot ultimately follow through with it. We are trapped by who we are, aren't we? Gwyneth tries to become Dickie's ideal woman, to avoid asking him to settle down, but she cannot -- she wants the home and the family. This is her undoing -- she weeps in the film, "I must have pressured him". Dickie can't escape the fact that he loves the nightlife -- that he strays, that his attention only lasts as long as the diversion. He says he will marry Gwyneth, but we know that his eye can never stop roaming. This is his undoing. Dickie's pal -- superficially polite, while snide and arrogant at the same time -- is much smarter than he appears, which leads to his undoing as well. When each of the characters lets their guard down and becomes who they are, it destroys them. Each of the characters has a tragic flaw that they try to ignore, or play to, a flaw which undoes the perfect lives they all pursue.

The ironic twist is that Tom Ripley is the catalyst for all of this -- yet, his tragic flaw is that he has no flaw. While each of the main characters has an identity they are running from, Ripley HAS no identity to speak of. He starts out pretending, and he pretends through the entire film. Who IS Tom Ripley? Even Tom himself wants to know. One would think that this would enable him to become the perfect actor -- when you paint on a blank canvas, one would think you can paint anything. But even Tom, blank as he is, distills down to someone -- even if it is a blank canvas, a "real nobody." And it is not only himself he is unsure of -- it is the entire world around him. Among his first lines in the film is a line uttered while listening to a jazz record -- he mumbles to himself, "Can't tell if it's a woman or a man." It is this uncertainty that informs the world he sees, and how he relates to it. Is Tom gay or straight? Is he evil or good? Even Tom doesn't know.

The film points out that we cannot run from our own darker half. We are all tempted to become someone else -- anyone who has been made fun of in school, who has longed for the life of the rich and famous, can identify with this The enemy is not without, it is within. It is this same duality which haunted and tormented so many of Hitchock's characters, most notably (but not exclusively) Norman Bates in "Psycho." "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is a worthy heir to that film classic in its ability to get the audience to sympathize and empathize with Tom. We feel his love for Dickie Greenleaf -- we feel his frustration at being shut out of his life -- we feel the awkwardness of being trapped in a situation that was never intended. As we watched Marion Crane's car pause in the swamp and waited breathlessly, perversely hoping it would sink and allow Norman's mother to get away with murder, so too we watch Tom Ripley descend into darkness, and when the cops arrive at his hotel, we wait breathlessly with Tom, hoping he will get away.

Duality is present within us all... and while we are taught "to thine own self be true," in this film it is only when we are true to ourselves, that true pain comes.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

A 90s Hitchockian thriller?

[9/10 · 29 December 1999]

Possibly -- or the closest we may get to one. The film makes some brave choices -- first, in its decision to avoid the stark colors of black and white which so frequently affect how we see the main protagonist (don't believe me? See the scene where Ripley and Peter are talking about dungeons -- Peter is clad in black, Ripley in white). Ripley is not a sociopath or psychopath, but simply a young man, unsure of himself (one of his first lines addresses his inability to distinguish a jazz singer by his/her voice), his sexuality, and his place in the world. He has made a hobby out of impersonating others. He is caught in a situation he never intended to be in, a situation that rapidly spirals out of control.

Additionally, the choice to make Ripley homosexual is certainly a brave one, especially by modern Hollywood standards. The waters of sexual attraction were never more muddied than they are in this film -- Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow both love Jude Law, who loves neither. In the complicated relationship that develops between Paltrow and Damon, Damon is the mistress to Paltrow's wife-figure. This underscores the tension that develops between them as Damon tries to incorporate himself into Law's life (and identity). It makes for a fascinating dynamic that is never explored, since after the murder Paltrow has nothing to do except get more and more suspicious (a tough motivation to play). The presence of Cate Blanchette's character muddies waters even more -- Damon is no screaming queen, and there is a sense in which as he plays out Dickie's life he is allowed to become a virtual Jekyll and Hyde -- he is both a sophisticated, suave man about town, attracted by and to women, and a repressed, insecure, frustrated homosexual man running from his own conscience. Is he gay, or not? Is he a good kid simply drawn in to bad circumstances, or is he a murderer? By allowing this uncertainty to play itself out without a complete resolution at the end, the film dares to invite its audience to make up its own mind -- a brave standard by any measure in today's climate.

The theme of duality also pervades the film, much as it did in Hitchcock's work ("Psycho" and "Strangers on a Train" are two obvious examples). Shots are constantly framed awkwardly and intentionally -- props, buildings, even whole sides of the city mix together that don't fit. Dark and white contrast in the frame -- and each character is off-set by one another, no more so than Cate Blanchette and Gwyneth Paltrow. At one point Damon drives down a road populated with mirrors, which are often a visual clue in Hitchcock's films.

The film is finally Hitchockian in its central question -- "how far would you go to be someone else?" Anyone who was ever picked on in school -- anyone who has ever idolized the rich and famous -- can appreciate what Damon's character faces in the film. Hitchcock always peopled his films with characters with whom you could identify with -- ordinary people cast into extraordinary circumstances. The film puts a mirror up to us and asks, "how well do you know yourself?" By placing us in the position of Matt Damon's character, we are forced to ask, "while these things he commits are terrible, can you honestly say that you wouldn't/couldn't do these things if placed in the same position?" The film's ultimate question -- "how well do you know yourself?" -- is the most profound...and the one it leaves us asking.