I am surprised to see myself type these words, but I enjoyed this film. I had instantly assumed when I first saw the preview that it would be another 2-hour piece of Hollywood schlock, but that it would at least have a good monologue about Alec Baldwin being god. So it was due to that, and a deep admiration of Bill Pullman that ZentropaJK (whom I am sure will write a far superior review) and I rented this film.
I admit that the swapping of villain responsibility can, and does, get old. After the Usual Suspects it seemed to be the new wave of filmmaking and a load of films cropped up with these “surprises” so that you could tell yet again what was going to happen based on the preview without evening wasting your $9.50 (in NY anyway) on a movie ticket. This film particularly exceeded my expectations in this regard where other films like Wild Things (though I did find this entertaining in other ways) had failed.
In fact, I was delighted when this turned out to be Andy’s (Bill Pullman) film instead of the supposed villain Jed’s, played quite well by Baldwin. I have never been a fan of Nicole Kidman and this certainly did not enlarge my respect, but there was plenty enough going on around her to distract and entertain. Bebe Neuwirth puts in a great tough, sympathetic secondary performance as Andy’s best buddy/cop on campus. And if you pay close attention, you get to see Gwyneth Paltrow before she was ever Shakespeare’s muse.
Note of warning: I am going to reveal just about everything that’s important in the film, otherwise I could not begin to explain why it was such a nifty watching experience.
I got a slight chuckle at the lack of subtlety in the opening credits as we watch a young girl bike ride home in a quiet New England town. The title comes up against a background of spring time in suburbia while soft music was playing. I thought at the time, gee, could I get knocked on the head any harder about the crime in a small town community? Needless to say, my interest was not piqued yet and if anything I was thinking about sleeping instead.
So the young woman gets home and while she is feeding her cat, a figure comes up from behind her with intent to kill. Cut to Andy giving Dana, (Bebe Neuwirth) campus security, a hard time about the current streak of rape/murder victims. Shortly thereafter Andy goes to visit his wife Tracy (Nicole Kidman) at the hospital where she works with children and runs into an old high school classmate, Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin). In order to complete the renovations on their happy home quicker, they take in Jed as a border.
Jed is loud, lewd, and obnoxious, the exact opposite of everything that Andy is. Normally the use of diametrically opposed characters would annoy me but instead I found myself easily accepting Jed’s charisma against Andy’s touching sympathetic hero. And because Jed is the epitome of “ego” we assume him to be the criminal on the loose, even though not a single character or event outwardly acknowledges this theory, a wonderful feat of writing in my opinion.
Shortly after Jed moves in Tracy has abdominal pain and ends up operated on by Jed. He takes out her ovaries, one apparently ruptured and the other with a cyst, and the young baby the young couple had been trying to conceive for so long is aborted due to the operation. Tracy leaves Andy for giving Jed the permission, as if he would really know anything about it. I found this moment particularly unconvincing and it was also the moment I lost complete respect Tracy, though you will in the long run if you have not by this time anyway. The hospital staff offers to cover up their medical files but Jed will not hear of relinquishing his judgment call.
The next few plot details felt as if they happened simultaneously so they may actually be out of order. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the serial rapist/killer for a while. (Gwyneth Paltrow was introduced in order to be killed.) This side plot is taken care of in one fell swoop as Andy is working late one night and heads to the basement when his bulb has died. He runs into the janitor, who has recently taken residence in the cellar and just happens to have locks of hair lying around, something the killer has taken from each of his victims. As he is leaving the cellar the janitor jumps him but quiet, unassuming Andy gets to win this round. Yeah! Many people might be aggravated by the sudden change in focus of plot but I found it wonderfully refreshing.
So Andy and Dana are having a drink to relax. Andy is depressing her with how that one minute that Jed was telling him about Tracy’s pregnancy was the happiest of his life, and unfortunately she says there is something to show him at the station. Andy is actually sterile, but it’s great that you don’t actually have that dramatic scene in the police station with Andy finding out about the sperm results, but instead hear him discuss his wife definite exploits by barging in on Jed. Jed tries to tell him to leave it be and move on, in fact it’s the scene in which Jed appears most humane throughout the film and yet it is still very believable. But Andy is even more enraged and goes after Tracy’s lawyer to accuse him and find her.
Instead he gets a lead towards her mother, the most underplayed Anne Bancroft I think I may ever have seen. It’s through her that he realizes the whole thing was a setup of Tracy’s in search of the almighty dollar, including their marriage. He follows the lead of a doctor that Tracy had mentioned seeing several times for her abdominal problems. Once in the small cottage, he observes a very happy Tracy enjoying the physical pleasures of Jed.
Okay, so I knew that the Tracy/Jed twist was coming but I honestly did not mind the film meeting this expectation because by this time I was completely at the will of Andy. He has to see this for himself in order for his character to grow and take charge and at least it was a quick enough reaction to not completely lose interest. There is a minor moment when Andy is just sitting in the house brooding. You are almost at the point of boredom when he gets to make a realization of a hypodermic needle, the use of which you learn later on.
He leaves an empty needle in Tracy and Jed’s love nest and Tracy promises to settle him. They meet for a glass of wine and Andy quickly gains the upper hand. Bill Pullman’s fine acting keeps this scene from getting annoyingly melodramatic as Tracy’s dialogue gets into the “you’re out of your league” type of lines that make me want to puke. Tracy returns to Jed, only to shoot him when he doesn’t seem to appreciate her plans anymore.
So surprisingly Jed doesn’t get to be part of the finale, which becomes more predictable as you’ve been pulled from one extreme to the other that anything can happen and you probably won’t be as shocked anymore. Needless to say that justice is served and you feel as exhausted as Andy does sitting on the steps.
Is the movie Oscar worthy or important for any reason? No, but it was a lot more entertaining than I expected it to be and I definitely recommend it to hard-boiled fiction fans or even the mainstream and “artsy” film enthusiasts. Once you get past the first ten minutes, with the exception of a few scenes mentioned above, you can barely take your eyes off the screen.
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