2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and nude sketches
By Derrick Bang
I cannot imagine what people were thinking.
This film is being marketed as a
frothy romantic comedy involving a New England prep school English teacher and
an art instructor, who encourage their respective students to engage in a
friendly rivalry to determine whether words or pictures are the superior form
of communication. Meanwhile, of course, the two instructors fall in love.
 |
| At first blush — and demonstrating excellent taste — Dina (Juliette Binoche) wants nothing to do with the arrogant and conceited Jack (Clive Owen). But she cannot help being intrigued by his proposal that their respective students embrace a challenge to determine the comparative value of language, spoken or written, and images, drawn, painted or photographed. So, game on! |
Don’t believe it. That’s a serious distortion of the truth.
Gerald Di Pego’s original
screenplay actually concerns an arrogant, alcoholic English instructor who lays
waste to everything and everybody in his orbit, committing an escalating series
of reprehensible acts while sliding further and further into uncontrolled
drinking. The story is a downer from its opening scenes, with a few more dreary
details thrown in as sidebar elements, just in case the central plot isn’t
depressing enough.
Evidence suggests, after
completion, that saner heads recognized this film as a stinker, since it sought
U.S. release for almost a year. The eventual takers — Lionsgate and Roadside
Attractions — must have been reluctant suitors, because the online press
materials are minimal (only four photos from which to choose, instead of the
usual two or three dozen), and most visibly because the film has been dumped
quietly during an early summer season dominated by much glitzier popcorn
flicks.
Fair enough. I just can’t figure
out what prompted stars such as Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche to accept the
assignment in the first place. Under no circumstances could Di Pego’s script
have seemed reasonable, let alone rational. And although veteran director Fred
Schepisi (Roxanne, Last Orders and Empire Falls, among others) gamely coaxes strong performances from
his two leads, that can’t change the fact that they’re trying to make a silk
purse from a sow’s ear.
Owen plays Jack Marcus, a
charismatic honors English instructor at Maine’s bucolic Croyden Prep, who has
long coasted on the adulation of students who enjoy his playful nature. But
these “likable big brother” characteristics, which teens find so enchanting,
are viewed as irritating and condescending by almost all of Jack’s colleagues.
The lone exception is Croyden’s history instructor, Walt (Bruce Davison), a
longtime friend who occasionally indulges Jack’s fondness for intricate word
games.
Jack’s most visible problem is an
ongoing slide into alcoholism, with lunchtime nips of vodka having blossomed
into drunken public displays that have gotten him blackballed at a tony local
restaurant. In part, Jack’s drinking results from professional panic; although
hired as a noted author and poet, back in the day, he hasn’t been able to write
anything for years.
His immediate concern, though, is
the late-term indifference of his students, most of whom no longer have any
interest in their senior year studies, since they’ve already been accepted into
all the best universities. Seeking something with which to inspire them anew, Jack
finds a solution with the arrival of renowned abstract artist Dina Delsanto
(Binoche), who takes over Croyden’s honors art class.
After Dina makes a crack about
images being far more expressive than words — and because these two classes
share most of the same students — Jack jumps on this opportunity to “prove,”
once and for all, that his passion for spoken and written communication
reflects a cultural imperative that dates back to ... well, to the very
beginning.
“To cave paintings?” Dina asks,
mockingly, but Jack is undeterred.
What Jack doesn’t know, because
Dina works hard to conceal it, is that she is succumbing to rheumatoid
arthritis: a painful affliction that has made it increasingly difficult for her
to even hold a brush, let alone stand or sit for the hours necessary to produce
a fresh painting.
So. The details are larded on
with a trowel, but we get it: Both these characters are flawed, and both are
increasingly unable to produce the work that characterizes them. I suppose we
also could accept that both suffer from afflictions beyond their control,
although it’s rather insulting to put Dina’s chronic inflammatory disorder on
par with Jack’s self-induced addiction to high-proof beverages.
More to the point, it’s
absolutely no fun to watch either of these people suffer, particularly because
Owen and Binoche are skilled actors, and they really sell their characters’ mounting despair and instability. Jack’s temper tantrums are childish,
explosive and frequent; it’s impossible to believe that he wasn’t fired a long
time ago by Croyden’s perceptive headmaster (Navid Negahban).
Considerable time also is spent
watching Dina stave off the inevitable, desperately using ever-larger brushes,
trying to figure out new ways to support the limbs and body that both betray
and keep her in constant pain. These sequences are profoundly sad, Binoche’s
attractive features contorted in pain, her eyes displaying the exhausted panic
that comes from agony-induced sleeplessness.
And yet Dina’s a fighter, and her
flirty banter with Jack is as much a means of self-preservation — a reminder to
herself, that she’s not giving up — as a desire to put this conceited colleague
in his place. Truth be told, though, she enjoys the competition, and this is
where Schepisi’s film does deliver
what we expect: Owen and Binoche have a lot of fun with their lively duel, and
we can’t help enjoying the witty repartee.
Owen puts considerable passion
into his often lengthy declamations; he obviously enjoys the richly expressive
sentences that Di Pego has put into Jack’s mouth. The words are rich and
lyrical, his ongoing defense of language genuinely welcome at a time when
today’s younger generation embraces the blunt, coarse, quick-speak of texting.
All this evolution, and we’re once again sending telegrams to each other?
Binoche, in turn, makes Dina
feisty and flinty: highly intelligent in a slightly different way, and
unwilling to yield a point without a fight. Dina gets the choicest bon mots — the best verbal zingers — and
Binoche delivers them with panache.
Unfortunately, none of this
obscures the fact that Dina needs this particular man like she needs a train
wreck. Indeed, he is a train wreck,
and it becomes ever harder to forgive Jack’s various transgressions, however
much we might enjoy his vibrant speeches.
Ultimately, inevitably, Jack
commits a sin that is simply unforgivable ... and yet, because this is a movie — albeit a very clumsy one —
a so-called happy ending remains obligatory.
Rubbish.
Both instructors are granted a
“favorite” among their students. Jack enjoys playful sport with the similarly
arrogant Swint (Adam DiMarco), the class cut-up whose antics border on cruelty,
particularly his pursuit of the painfully shy and insecure Emily (Valerie Tian)
... who, by an incredible
coincidence, is the budding artist Dina believes has the most potential of all
the students in her class.
This subplot involving Swint and
Emily, though, moves in weird directions and builds to a bewildering and
thoroughly unsatisfying climax. And again, I wonder: What the hell was Di Pego
thinking?
Amy Brenneman has an
underdeveloped and similarly awkward role as Elspeth, a Croyden exec who had
the bad judgment to bed Jack, once upon a time. Christian Scheider fares better
as Tony, the adult son that Jack constantly disappoints (yep, even more
uncomfortable scenes). Josh Ssettuba makes the most of his role as Cole, a
compassionate student who, his finer qualities notwithstanding, seems to be
seeking something to do in this
script.
Davison is marvelous, as always,
dominating his scenes via graciousness and calm. He’s long been one of our
finest character actors, popping up and enhancing everything he embraces ...
and he’s too frequently taken for granted.
But all this talent can’t save a
script that was ham-fisted and misanthropic going in: not even during a brief
moment when Jack and Dina separately confront the possibility that yet another
method of expression might be just as powerful as their respective passions (a
clever notion that goes nowhere).
Ironic, then, that this film’s
most serious flaws come down to this: It’s the words, stupid!
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