Country: USA
Genre: Drama
Direction: Brooks Branch
Cast: Timothy Hutton, Mira Sorvino, Dana Delany, India Ennenga, Mario Van Peebles, Stockard Channing
It's New York, 1979. Gabriel Richmond is a talented architect with a seemingly rich life as he has a caring wife, loving daughter and life long friends. Yet, he spends most days in the movie theater, hiding out from work, escaping into a fictional world where he can more readily relate to the made up characters. When fiction shines a mirror on his own life, an inspired Gabriel begins writing a play not-so-loosely based on his reality, examining all of the relationships that make his life what it is. At first a hobby, the play begins to consume Gabriel's own self-examination. Slowly he realizes the fragility of his relationships and overall decisions in life, but does not know what to do with this information other than write about it. Gabriel's work eventually gains momentum just as his real life begins to fall apart. Equipped with a hand-held tape recorder and typewriter, he begins a journey to re-author his own life, looking back on the pieces of his fractured self. He begins to see that life is not always as controlled as a play or movie and sometimes the best thing an author can do is let the characters speak for themselves. Emblematic of the self-discovery that was hatching in New York (and many other cities) at the end of the 1970's, Multiple Sarcasms shines a light on not only Gabriel's life, but also the complex people that make it up. From his wife and daughter to his colleagues at work and lifelong best friend - Gabriel tries to understand these complex people who collectively make up too much of his own self worth.
Download Multiple Sarcasms (2010)
Movie Review:
Gabriel Richmond (Timothy Hutton) is a talented architect in a seemingly happy marriage with his wife Annie (Dana Delany). He is the proud parent of loving daughter Elizabeth (India Ennenga) and has a best friend, Cari (Mira Sorvino), who he can confide just about anything in. The man’s life is by all accounts perfect, and for a New Yorker trying to make the best of it in 1979 he’s got it all going for him and then some.
And yet Gabriel is not happy. In fact, he’s borderline depressed, his boss and good friend Rocky (Mario Van Peebles) noticing how his pal’s disinterest in work seems to be mirroring his psychological freefall. But after speaking with theatrical agent Pamela (Stockard Channing) Gabriel becomes obsessed with writing a play, all else in his life becoming secondary as he uses the women in his life as inspiration to craft a piece of theatrical literature he’s positive audiences are going to adore.
I wanted to like director and co-writer Brooks Branch’s debut effort Multiple Sarcasms a lot more than I actually did. The filmmaker’s script, co-written with Linda Morris (Shannon’s Rainbow), is pretty good where it comes to female characters, most of them three dimensional and interesting even if their overall screen time is limited. I also thought the film had moments of great insight into the creative process, anyone who has ever tried to write anything from a book to an essay to a screenplay to a play going to find plenty to relate to every time Gabriel decides to pull out the typewriter.
My problem is that I simply did not like the main character, and even though I could relate to him at times as a writer as a person I didn’t take to him for a single solitary second. The guy begins as a morose sad-sack with no apparent reason to be so glum, and while everyone is entitled to a midlife crisis his has to be one of the most unappealing in all of cinematic history. I was put off by his whining, didn’t care for his behavior and had trouble understanding where his pessimistic narcissism was coming from and how Annie, Cari or client and secret girlfriend Lauren (Laila Robins) could put up with it I just didn’t get.
It doesn’t help that Hutton’s performance is strictly one note. I kept waiting for him to find the man’s depths, to give me an understanding into his malaise that I could relate to and understand. I wanted him to bring nuance to this guy’s depressive state, to find the light inside the darkness that so often occurs during even a person's lowest low.
He just doesn’t do it, instead trotting out a performance full of annoying ticks and quirks that got under my skin for all the wrong reasons. What’s worse is that I’ve always liked the actor, felt he’s been criminally underrated even though he won an Oscar for Ordinary People back in 1980. His performances in projects as diverse as Iceman, Q&A, The Dark Half and Beautiful Girls are to my mind exemplary, while his work on TNT’s “Leverage” is some of the finest on television today. But here I just felt like he was continually dropping the ball, and as his character is in just about every scene watching the film got harder and harder as it went along.
On the plus side I really did love the women, especially Sorvino and relative newcomer Ennenga. They brought an energy and an exuberance to the picture that was sadly lacking whenever they all disappeared, and even though some of the characters are rather sketchily written (especially Delany’s) each is able to make something darn near magical out of them all the same. In fact, the only lady here who is given too short a shrift is Channing, her one dimensional agent so cliché and disagreeable I almost wonder why an actress of her talents chose to take on the role in the first place.
I think Brooks has the goods, and I am interested in seeing what he chooses to do next. The man has an easygoing directorial style and sense of pace I can totally get behind, while his overall handling of female characters both young and old is darn near wonderful. I just wish it all came together in a much more satisfying way in regards to Multiple Sarcasms, and even if there’s plenty I can appreciate the movie itself is still nothing more than a sadly misbegotten curio piece I just can’t begin to recommend.
Original article
No comments:
Post a Comment