Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, nudity and drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.10.15
You have to admire a fact-based
film that’s candid about not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth.
Danny Collins opens with a
disclaimer that reads “Kind of based on a true story a little bit.” Gotta love
it.
As it happens, writer/director
Dan Fogelman’s charming dramedy merely “borrows” a minor incident as a
jumping-off point for the wholly fictitious saga of an aging rock/pop star who
undergoes a life-changing epiphany.
Or so he hopes...
Fogelman has sharp writing
sensibilities: an eye for engaging character dynamics, and an ear for the sort
of intelligent, witty badinage that we don’t get often enough in today’s
movies. After script assists on animated fare such as Cars and Tangled, and
an endearing solo turn on the under-appreciated TV movie Lipshitz Saves the
World, Fogelman made an impressive big-screen writing splash with 2011’s
delightful Crazy, Stupid, Love.
His immediate follow-ups — The
Guilt Trip and Last Vegas — were somewhat disappointing, in comparison, but
Fogelman has kicked back into high gear with Danny Collins, on which he also
makes a respectable directing debut. The result is a thoroughly entertaining,
character-driven melodrama that grants Al Pacino his best role since his turn
as TV journalist Lowell Bergman, in 1999’s The Insider.
He stars here as Danny Collins, a
one-time rock wunderkind whose debut album, way back in the day, demonstrated
the poetic grace of a Bob Dylan ... but who, during the intervening four
decades, has succumbed to the drugs, alcohol and circus-style pomp of his
rock-god image, up to and including his hilariously overdone, George
Hamilton-style tan.
I hope Neil Diamond has a good
sense of humor, because the typical Danny Collins concert extravaganza with
which Fogelman opens his film — during which the star belts out his signature
anthem, “Hey, Baby Doll,” to enthusiastic audience participation — looks and
sounds just like the love-fest that occurs whenever Diamond does “Sweet
Caroline” during his shows.
Backstage, the ennui has taken
its toll, the years of identically vacuous performances deeply etched into
lines of discouragement on Danny’s face. And while he may have more money than
God, and all the trappings that wealth can buy — including a sexpot girlfriend
half his age (Katarina Cas, as the rarely dressed Sophie) — Danny has become
cynical, miserable, bored ... and desperate.
Desperate enough, that the notion
of another birthday is giving him thoughts of ending it all.
Longtime manager and best friend
Frank Grubman (Christopher Plummer), tut-tutting such self-pity, gives Danny a
most unusual birthday present. Way back in the day, when Danny was interviewed
by a Rolling Stone-esque magazine, his candor aroused the interest of no less
than John Lennon, who responded with an encouraging letter. But the letter went
astray for various reasons, and Danny never received it.
Now, thanks to Frank’s dedicated
Internet search — knowing that Danny has long admired Lennon — the letter has
been found, framed and presented to its intended recipient.
This short note shakes Danny to
the core. Abandoning everything — including the remainder of the tour — he jets
to a suburban New Jersey community and checks into a quiet Hilton Inn, where he
meets cute with the young doorman (Josh Peck, as Nicky), the equally young
counter clerk (Melissa Benoist, as Jamie) and the somewhat more mature manager
(Annette Bening, as Mary).
This somnambulant New Jersey
setting is no mere caprice; it’s within shouting distance of the modest
neighborhood home of the adult son that Danny never has met. The newly
invigorated pop star is on two missions: to write some deeply heartfelt new songs,
akin to those he penned all those years ago; and to connect with the family he
has wholly ignored during that entire time.
Trouble is, he has forgotten how
to do the former, and has virtually no experience with the latter.
Nor does his son, Tom (Bobby
Cannavale), wish to have anything to do with this absentee parent who descends
like an expectant bolt from the blue. Tom’s wife Samantha (Jennifer Garner) is
a bit more sympathetic, but still troubled; when she concludes what’s likely to
be her one and only meeting with Danny by saying “Shame on you,” that single
word slices through his heart more skillfully than a surgeon’s sharpest blade.
Pacino’s shattered response,
conveyed wholly by his silence and wounded eyes, speaks volumes.
But he perceptively realizes that
the path into Tom and Samantha’s lives routes through their adorably lively
young daughter, Hope (Giselle Eisenberg). The little girl actually is alarmingly,
uncontrollably shrill at the blink of an eye: an ADHD kid who can’t get the
necessary help from Tom’s modest income in construction work.
By now, we know that Fogelman’s
narrative is heading into unapologetically sentimental waters ... but that’s
absolutely OK. Pacino has built up enough good will; we’re ready to follow his
Danny anywhere. The always excellent Cannavale delivers just the right blend of
dismay, disgust and disappointment as the aggrieved, working-class Tom, while
Garner is similarly spot-on as the daughter-in-law who senses that
rapprochement would be best for all concerned, if only it could be finessed.
Meanwhile, Danny has had a piano
moved into his room at the Hilton — we have to assume that the place is mostly
empty, and that he therefore doesn’t bother anybody — and is struggling his way
through putting music to a set of freshly scrawled lyrics.
What follows navigates a rather
predictable path, except when it doesn’t, and then rather shamelessly ratchets
up the schmaltz ... but, again, that’s OK. By this point, Fogelman is in firm
control, and we’re ready to follow him anywhere.
Pacino’s Danny is vibrant, brash
and doggedly intrusive: absolutely determined to write a new song, to break
through Tom’s self-defensive barriers, to score a dinner date with Mary. He’s
the cad we can’t help admiring, who too frequently tries to solve problems by
throwing money at them, but who genuinely wants to make authentic emotional
connections ... if only he could figure out how.
He’s simultaneously funny and
pathetic, and while his newly acquired acquaintances may laugh with him, we can
see that it’s the guarded laughter of nervous victims prepared to bolt at the
slightest hint of actual instability. The role is tailor-made for Pacino, who
rewards us with a marvelously opulent and richly, subtly shaded performance.
Cannavale, an under-appreciated
actor whom I’ve admired since he came to my attention in 2003’s The Station
Agent, is quietly persuasive as Tom. Cannavale works an impressive array of
emotions into his performance, and he always looks and sounds just right, as a
guy utterly unwilling to accept this glad-handing stranger at his word ... but
nonetheless, deep down, wanting to.
Plummer is the pluperfect mentor:
a long-stereotyped role that the veteran actor nonetheless re-defines and makes
his own, much the way Burgess Meredith brought fresh life to the similarly
clichéd part of “crusty boxing trainer” in the original Rocky. Plummer’s
Frank is quietly wise, eternally patient, and also capable of unleashing
wonderfully snarky one-liners.
Bening is enjoyable on a
different level: She makes Mary a woman who has been around some, and who
enjoys verbal duels with Danny for their own sake, but who nonetheless sees
right through the artifice. Bening’s droll repartee with Pacino is delicious —
the stuff of classic Howard Hawks romantic comedies — and Fogelman even tweaks
us by calling attention to it, when Danny delightedly chortles about the “good
banter” that he and Mary share.
Garner is solicitous and sympathetic:
a concerned wife and mother who radiates calm and devotion, but who also
possesses the protective instincts of a lioness. Cas, in turn, is amusingly
shallow as the unapologetically slutty, gold-digging Sophie.
Benoist, so memorable during her
two seasons on TV’s Glee, is adorably effervescent as the nervous Jamie, whom
Danny immediately tries to pair off with Nicky; Peck handles that part with
eager-beaver aplomb.
Danny’s crowd-pleasing power
anthem notwithstanding, the rest of the film’s soundtrack is graced by nine
well-placed Lennon tunes, from “Imagine” and “Working Class Hero” to “Beautiful
Boy” and “Cold Turkey.”
As for Fogelman’s inspiration —
you wanted to know, right? — it comes from a letter that Lennon actually wrote
to British folk musician Steve Tilston in 1971 (the same year Lennon writes the
note in this film), who only found out about it in 2005, when an American
collector shared it. Tilston has enjoyed a modest but consistently successful
career, and we can only imagine how his life might have changed, had he read
the letter when it actually was sent.
Which, of course, is the hook on
which Fogelman has quite cleverly hung his warm and endearing film. Danny
Collins deserves to become a hit: It’ll reward repeat viewing, and I’m equally
certain that its soundtrack will become a best-seller.
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