Film
Here is a screenwriting rule of thumb. One writer good; more than two writers bad. This is not completely trustworthy: for example, George 'You can write this shit but you sure can't say it' Lucas was the sole screenwriter for the first Star Wars film. However, it is a pretty firm guideline.
The latest installment of mutant fun, X-Men 2, is credited to eleven writers.
The pitfalls of having your script written by a bunch of monkeys throwing bananas at their typewriters are evident from the following scene:
Dr Jean Gray (Famke Janssen): [she sees 'angry loner Wolverine'™, played by hirsute Antipodean Hugh Jackman] 'Are you alright?'
Wolverine: [frowns like a child who wants ice-cream: this is, I think, meant to indicate admiration, respect... all right, love] 'I am now.'
The drawbacks of something like this are tremendous. It is dialogue we have all heard before. We stop listening to the words and start to look more closely at the pictures, which means we notice that Wolverine's hair is threatening to turn into a pair of Mickey-Mouse ears. In all sorts of ways we stop being involved in the picture. And once your concentration slips with this film, you are lost.
What are they doing in Boston? Why are they stealing that car? Why are those little children electrocuting themselves? Isn't that the really annoying actor from Goldeneye? These are just a very few of the questions I needed to ask my girlfriend over the course of this movie. Of course, being a qualified film scholar, she had the correct answer, which was to stick popcorn in my ear until I shut up.
But maybe I was just being pedantic. As far as plot is concerned, this film doesn't even try to attain coherence. It does much better: it attains Nirvana - the complete absence of any identifying features. All that is solid melts into air. Trust no one, for no one knows what they are doing, or meant to be doing. Even the Oscar winners in the cast (Anna Paquin, Halle Berry) seem lost, underemployed, or generally confused.
So, what is left? One of the annoying things about most comic books is that they give far too many of their panels over to very basic philosophising: why am I here? How did I get this way? Why can't I be accepted? Why do nice girls hate me? Director Bryan Singer (of Usual Suspects fame - it makes me weep, it really does) sees no reason to change this trend.
Filling in time between the quite impressive action scenes, the film is larded with portentous discussions about 'being different', or points where characters, notably Jackman, try to find out about their past. This is not the cue for an in-depth discussion of identity and history, but rather for some soft-focus shots of bare-chested actors covered in blood.
Of course, no one was expecting this to be Chinatown. It is a perfectly acceptable action movie, and an OK way to waste an afternoon. It will probably sell a lot of copies of the tie-in video game (Sales pitch: 'Control the characters yourself! Do a better job than the director!'). It is just a shame it is so unmemorable. The cast list contains a character called Shadowcat. I have absolutely no recollection of her being in this film. By tomorrow, I suppose I may have suppressed the whole thing, and be ready to pay and see it again.
It was the really annoying actor from Goldeneye, by the way. You may not notice, because in this film he is painted blue and speaks in a terrible fake German accent. This is what Stanislavsky called 'building a role'. He is not the worst thing about the movie.
From the publicity, I Capture the Castle looks like yet another schmaltzy heritage Brit-flick, with every aspect of it looking tiresome and formulaic (it's even got a big picture of Ye Olde Ruined Castle on the posters, in case we didn't get the idea from the title). The fact that it's based on a novel by Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmatians, does nothing to dispel these fears. However, against all expectations, this turns out to be a surprisingly subtle and moving look at the awkwardness of human emotions.
Although the main strand of the plot, which deals with two sisters living in a decrepit castle - the glamorous Rose (Byrne) and the slightly more dowdy Cassandra (Garai) - and their romantic entanglements with a couple of young, wealthy Americans, is certainly interesting and amusing enough, it is ultimately unsurprising in its various twists and turns, at least until the faintly downbeat ending.
A greater amount of interest comes in the sub-plot concerning their failed novelist father (Nighy), and his tempestuous relationship with their eccentric, nudist artist stepmother. Nighy takes a potentially dull part and wrings every drop of humanity and pathos from it, even if he is ultimately short-changed by the necessity of wrapping up the plot of a two-hour film satisfactorily. The film is hardly a masterpiece, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that you were watching something akin to Chekhov when his character is finally confronted with the realisation of all the pain and suffering for which he has indirectly been responsible.
This is never likely to be a $100 million blockbuster, but it is certainly worth seeing if X2 is sold out. The book on which it's based is also good, although you might have to convince booksellers that it is not, in fact, written for small children.
8th May 2003