3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.18.14
Writer/director Paul Haggis’ film
is too long, too self-indulgent and often too precious.
That said, it’s also intriguing,
mysterious, and oddly compelling. And, to a degree, there’s a reason for the
many contrivances. Whether the “ultimate answer” justifies the prolonged
journey, however, will be up to the taste — and tolerance — of the individual
viewer.
Haggis is a seasoned writer,
having cut his teeth on various TV dramas before leaping to the big screen with
several high-profile assignments with Clint Eastwood: Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima and most particularly Million Dollar Baby, the latter
two garnering Oscar nominations. Haggis also helped revive the James Bond
franchise by collaborating on the gritty scripts for Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
Most notably, though, Haggis is
known for taking home twin Academy Awards for 2004’s Crash, a victory that
remains controversial to this day. Some Best Picture Oscar winners are
universally embraced; others divide movie buffs into polarized camps. Crash belongs to the latter group, its interlinked storylines alternately praised as
insightful social commentary or ridiculed as puerile left-wing twaddle.
Third Person is an equally
personal film that employs a similar template of seemingly disconnected
narratives that slide in and around each other. The crossovers aren’t as direct
as those in, say, Babel, Love Actually or even Crash; sometimes it’s no
more than two people passing each other in a hotel hallway, Haggis’ camera
using that excuse to shift quietly from one point of view to the other.
Except that there is more going
on here, as we eventually discover.
Perhaps sensitive to the warring
camps he created with Crash, Haggis avoids even a whiff of political content
this time, focusing instead on interpersonal relationships and issues of trust.
All the characters here are in various stages of flirtation, love or rejection,
their behavior determined by anger, frustration and impatience.
And by hope. Hope for
understanding; hope that things will get better; hope that past transgressions
can be surmounted, catalogued and forgiven.
Julia (Mila Kunis) can’t get her
life together, much to the vexation of her attorney, Theresa (Maria Bello).
Forever between jobs and frequently down to pocket change, Julia nonetheless
hopes to regain visitation rights with the 6-year-old son living full-time with
his father Rick (James Franco), a famed New York artist, and his girlfriend Sam
(Loan Chabanol). We’ve no idea what Julia did, to be shunned so thoroughly by
her ex; her flakiness alone doesn’t seem sufficient cause for such total
banishment.
Scott (Adrian Brody), a “fashion
spy” thoroughly disenchanted by his current visit to Italy, is drawn into the
plight of Monika (Moran Atias), a hot-tempered Roma woman trying to ransom her
younger daughter from a human trafficker. But as the days pass, this
situation’s increasing complications prompt Scott to wonder whether he’s the
patsy in an elaborate con game, even though he desperately wishes to believe
the best of his new female companion.
Finally, Pulitzer Prize-winning
fiction author Michael (Liam Neeson) has sequestered himself in a posh Parisian
hotel suite, hoping to finish a book that he suspects is going nowhere. He’s
constantly distracted by his tempestuous lover, Anna (Olivia Wilde), a young
journalist with her own ambitions for publishing fame; he also remains
connected, if only tangentially, to Elaine (Kim Basinger), the estranged wife
left behind at their home in the States.
Darker secrets also punctuate
these situations. Each night, before bed, Scott listens to an old phone message
from his young daughter. Theresa, haunted by some memory, can’t swim in her own
pool. Something ... massive ... led to Michael’s estrangement from Elaine. Anna
keeps getting phone calls from somebody whose very presence clearly unsettles
her. And exactly what did Julia do, to earn Rick’s inflexible wrath?
Most of the performances are
strong, although two of the three narratives are far more engaging. We’re most
drawn to Scott’s plight, since Brody’s woebegone features suggest depths of
misery that cry out for a balancing positive event in his life. Trouble is, Monika
is anything but a cleansing force, her subtle manipulations merely reinforcing
Scott’s mounting suspicions.
He wants to take her at face
value, somehow needs to. And yet, as the anguish builds in Brody’s expressive
eyes over time, he fears that he has hitched his emotional tether to the wrong
dark horse.
Atias deftly plays up her
character’s ambiguity, leaving us with the same questions. Does Monika’s temper
spring solely from the reflexive prejudice she suffers, as a Roma woman? Are
we, as viewers, guilty of the same racial profiling that bedevils Scott? Or are
our suspicions as valid as his? Atias, unerringly flashing a note of
vulnerability each time it’s needed, offers no quick or easy answers.
The erotic byplay between Michael
and Anna vacillates between sensual and irritating, the latter due to her
instability. At times, their relationship seems to exist solely in a world of
flirty role-playing, exacerbated by his tendency to discuss their provocatively
playful banter in the third person, as befits his occupation as a writer (hence
this film’s title). They tease each other mercilessly, particularly when it
comes to sex; one droll carnal encounter begins when Anna shows up outside
Michael’s hotel door, wearing only a white robe.
On the other hand, Anna
frequently turns on Michael, quite cruelly switching off her playful charm. Is
she justified, self-conscious as the “other woman” who always takes second
place when Michael receives a call from his wife? Or is something darker
tugging at Anna’s stability? Wilde delivers a nicely shaded performance that is
leagues better than her pop-tart work in the likes of TRON: Legacy or Cowboys & Aliens: her first role that demands she be taken seriously as
an actress.
Like Brody’s Scott, Neeson’s Michael
carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, whether struggling with his
novel, or trying to navigate his lover’s volatility. Michael’s go-to response
to both situations is long-suffering patience, which Anna regards as insincere:
just more authorial artifice. We sense that’s unfair, because Neeson’s gaze
carries genuine pain.
Or is it true, as both Anna and
Elaine insist, that Michael has become incapable of experiencing actual
emotions, having somehow cut himself off?
Questions, questions. Credit
where due, Haggis keeps all these plates spinning pretty well, even as we grow
impatient and wish for resolutions.
The situation with Julia and Rick
is less persuasive, mostly because both Kunis and Franco aren’t very
interesting. Try as he might, Franco can’t make Rick more than smug and
detached; our one exposure to his parenting skills reveal a guy who knows
nothing about being a father.
We’re intended to pity Julia,
having lost everything in her hapless struggle to regain the ground under her
feet ... but Kunis too often comes off as whiny and self-absorbed. There’s also
an oddly touching scene between Julia and Sam: an encounter weighted with the
suggestion of — something — but which goes nowhere.
Basinger and Bello phone in their
performances (pun intended, since both spend most of their screen time on the
phone); we never get a sense of who they are, as people, aside from the fact
that they’re also emotionally damaged.
As for what’s actually going on
... well, it is a mystery, and like all “fair” mysteries, clues abound. One
particularly telling comment comes from Michael’s publisher and longtime
friend, Jake (a brief but richly shaded performance by David Harewood). Then
there’s the off-camera whisper that Michael hears, as a memory: a little boy
saying “Watch me...” (a phrase that figures prominently on this film’s poster,
so you know it must be important).
The production credits are
uniformly excellent, with strong kudos going to cinematographer Gianfilippo
Corticelli, for his nifty tracking shots, and the “hand-offs” from one
narrative to the next; and to composer Dario Marianelli, for a rich orchestral
score that often employs source sounds — like the typewriter, in his score for
2007’s Atonement — to augment the blending of character themes, while moving
between storylines. Indeed, Marianelli’s music often drives the film, and our
interest, as much as any of the individual characters.
As for the final reveal ... well,
you’ll either find it ingeniously clever, and be inspired to watch the whole
film again; or you’ll roll your eyes and dismiss it as absurd and annoying. I’m
in the former camp; I’d happily embrace a second viewing, this time to
concentrate more on the performances, while not being distracted by trying to
suss out the mystery.
I suspect, however, that most
viewers will wind up bored and irritated. Which is a shame, because — at the
very least — Haggis deserves credit for provocative storytelling.
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