Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
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Jamie Babbit's arresting sophomore feature and a big budget dud remake of the 1970s chiller by Mr. No Lady Like, Neil LaBute
Lesbian director Jamie Babbit has a resume that includes a host of lite dramatic television shows with primary female teenage
characters (Gilmore Girls-Nip/Tuck-Wonderfalls) and a delightful parody movie that found the girls talking about and doing things that
GLBT audiences loved (her winning lesbian comedy But I’m a Cheerleader). As these projects have shown, Babbit has an enviable
track record when it comes to eliciting strong performances from teenage actresses (or young actresses playing teens). She gets two
more from Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle (especially riveting in the title role) with her new feature, The Quiet, a dark and
unsettling movie that’s a 360, material-wise from Babbit’s usual fare.
The movies have long been tantalized by stories that revolve around the effect a deaf/mute character has on those around him or
her. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Piano, and the genre’s masterpiece, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona are but a few stand out
examples. Babbit, working from a first time feature script by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft, has crafted a memorable addition to
the canon. The picture’s set in another of those anonymous, upscale suburbs – the land of American Beauty and The Ice Storm –
where both parents and children are narcotized, teenagers take venal pleasure in their verbal cruelty, and individuals who march to a
different drummer are in for a world of trouble.
When we first glimpse the dark haired, blank faced Dot (Belle), she’s lost in a crowd at her new high school and in voice over she
reveals, “When I was in a whole crowd of people I felt like nobody” but on camera she’s mute. And apparently deaf. Dot has
recently lost her surviving parent, her father, and come to live with her God parents, Olivia and Paul (Edie Falco and Martin Donovan)
and their über bitch, cheerleader daughter, blond vixen Nina (Cuthbert). The makings of a modern day Carrie in which Carrie White
the perennial Janis “At Seventeen” Ian loser is forced to move in with her nemesis Chris Hargensen seems about to unfold.
But though the usual taunting of the “ugly” girl (Dot couldn’t be more beautiful), Mean Girls style comes right on cue, as do the
revelations about Dot’s new family’s dysfunctions (the mother’s a prescription pill addict, the father a little too attentive to his nubile
daughter), the movie begins to swerve into a much trickier, more emotionally complex area that makes it, if not much less
predictable, more emotionally satisfying. One complication is that of the school’s hunk, Connor (X-Men’s Shawn Ashmore) becoming
intrigued by Dot and pursuing her – after overhearing her play a beautiful Beethoven piece in the darkened music room when she
thinks she’s alone. Slowly, Dot’s expressionless face and demeanor become irresistible to the characters who reveal their secrets
and yearnings to her as she in turn fills us in on her background in voice over (often while playing another of those exquisite
Beethoven pieces). With small encouragements, each begins to project the response and validation that they are looking for onto
Dot. The confessions of the male characters, the father and Connor are unsettling but Nina, in desperate need of Dot’s apparent
inner assurance, finally realizes she has found an ally. A bond forms between the two, light and dark (kind of like Glinda and
Elphaba in Wicked) and the film moves into The Comfort of Strangers and Heavenly Creatures territory and ratchets up the
melodrama. Though the relationship doesn’t become physical, there’s a distinct, palpable physical intimacy between Dot and Nina
and their later scenes carry a distinct erotic charge.
Donovan and Falco, who are both such talented, natural actors that their work is easily overlooked, turn in expert support as does
Ashmore in a tough part that’s alternately sunny and creepy (Connor is a very strange guy). As noted, the two leading women,
Cuthbert and Belle (so moving in another tale of surburban ennui, The Chumscrubber), do excellent work. Depending on your read,
this psychological drama is helped – or overstated – by the fact that the huge sprawling home in which the family lives is in the midst
of being redecorated by the mother and is mostly empty and the pretty but dissonant score composed of gongs, chimes and tinkling
pianos that echo in the hollow rooms by ambient musician Jeff Rona. I liked both and much else in this eerie little drama, too.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SPOILERS – BUT YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Why does Neil LaBute hate women so much? This question has been posed about the polarizing playwright and not terribly good
film director since his breakthrough movie, the misogynist’s wet dream, 1997’s In the Company of Men. Brutal portrayals of women as
castrating, power mad bitches, has run through seemingly everything he’s written. What Mel Gibson is to Jews and gays, LaBute has
been to women and now with LaBute’s latest male revenge fantasy, The Wicker Man, he goes off the Richter scale.
The idea to remake The Wicker Man, the offbeat 1973 British indie, an occult thriller centered on a man looking for a missing child
amongst a group practicing ancient pagan rituals on a secluded island, was a good one. Though the original enjoys a substantial
reputation among critics and film buffs, the general public hasn’t known much about this thriller. So what a nifty idea to transplant
the whole thing to America, ratchet up the suspense and tailor it to a leading man the likes of Nicolas Cage.
But handing the script writing and directing duties to LaBute is the picture’s downfall. The script, based on Peter Schaffer’s elegant
original, reorganizes the residents of the island (now located in the Northwest Pacific) into a group of sour, Hecate worshipping
harpies that refer to each other as “Sister Rose,” and “Sister Honey” and the like and are presided over by the seemingly benign but
“don’t fuck with me fellas” Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn). Into this cultish convent of earth mothers strides Cage as a cop with a
mission. With his thinning, dyed hair and dressed in a suit and tie (he's a dressy cop, even on vacation, I guess), Cage is
determined to find the missing child of his ex-fiance, the appropriately named Willow (Kate Beahan) who has written to him
imploring him to come to the island and help her. Beahan has the bee stung lips that every actress in Hollywood seems to crave at
the moment and they fit right in with all the beehives that the women are constantly attending for the honey (Tori Amos, with her
recent bee themed album always seems to be lurking just out of frame). But nothing, not even Beahan's sweet fat lips, it seems is
going to stop Cage from getting at the truth and he bulldozes his way through this female enclave. By loudly insisting that he’s a
cop (though from out of state) and that a missing child is serious business, he sweeps aside any protests from the women.
Up to this point the movie has held a fair amount of promise (believe it or not) but soon after, when Cage strides into the one room
schoolroom and bullies the female teacher and her little girl pupils the movie descends into camp and never recovers. One
unintentionally hilarious scene follows another as the women take out their revenge on this…this...drone...this…man who has
dared! to! sully! their! island! with! his! presence! Cage, who at the climax appears in a bear costume (now that’s suspenseful!)
finally ends up as the sacrifice to the goddess of fertility, burned alive as the ladies drone on and on in sensuous ecstasy as he goes
up in flames. All the while Cage, who falls through a rotted floor in a barn, is stung by bees that he’s allergic to (naturally), is
trapped in an underground, watery cavern overnight (but shows not a hint of being the worse for wear after being rescued), and gets
into a chop socky fight with Leelee Sobieski, never stops ACTING. This is the trap that Cage falls into time and again when he’s not
given a solid script or a director to reign in his melodramatic instincts.
It’s not hard to see why The Wicker Man was withheld from critics until the last possible moment – it’s a dreadful stinker (no internet
buzz would have helped, trust me, even though I'm a film critic). But it does have its good points – the production design is
fantastic as are the lush, green island locations, for example. Best of all, the film’s so camp I can’t wait for the DVD release
(probably being shipped from the factory as I write). I know what I’m screening at my next “Bad Movie Night” event. Boy are my
guests and I going to have fun.
If that’s not enough, the movie’s tired coda promises a slew of camp sequels to follow – plenty of opportunities for LaBute to swill his
misogyny across the screen. Wicker Man 2: the Bitches Are Back anyone?
characters (Gilmore Girls-Nip/Tuck-Wonderfalls) and a delightful parody movie that found the girls talking about and doing things that
GLBT audiences loved (her winning lesbian comedy But I’m a Cheerleader). As these projects have shown, Babbit has an enviable
track record when it comes to eliciting strong performances from teenage actresses (or young actresses playing teens). She gets two
more from Elisha Cuthbert and Camilla Belle (especially riveting in the title role) with her new feature, The Quiet, a dark and
unsettling movie that’s a 360, material-wise from Babbit’s usual fare.
The movies have long been tantalized by stories that revolve around the effect a deaf/mute character has on those around him or
her. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Piano, and the genre’s masterpiece, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona are but a few stand out
examples. Babbit, working from a first time feature script by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft, has crafted a memorable addition to
the canon. The picture’s set in another of those anonymous, upscale suburbs – the land of American Beauty and The Ice Storm –
where both parents and children are narcotized, teenagers take venal pleasure in their verbal cruelty, and individuals who march to a
different drummer are in for a world of trouble.
When we first glimpse the dark haired, blank faced Dot (Belle), she’s lost in a crowd at her new high school and in voice over she
reveals, “When I was in a whole crowd of people I felt like nobody” but on camera she’s mute. And apparently deaf. Dot has
recently lost her surviving parent, her father, and come to live with her God parents, Olivia and Paul (Edie Falco and Martin Donovan)
and their über bitch, cheerleader daughter, blond vixen Nina (Cuthbert). The makings of a modern day Carrie in which Carrie White
the perennial Janis “At Seventeen” Ian loser is forced to move in with her nemesis Chris Hargensen seems about to unfold.
But though the usual taunting of the “ugly” girl (Dot couldn’t be more beautiful), Mean Girls style comes right on cue, as do the
revelations about Dot’s new family’s dysfunctions (the mother’s a prescription pill addict, the father a little too attentive to his nubile
daughter), the movie begins to swerve into a much trickier, more emotionally complex area that makes it, if not much less
predictable, more emotionally satisfying. One complication is that of the school’s hunk, Connor (X-Men’s Shawn Ashmore) becoming
intrigued by Dot and pursuing her – after overhearing her play a beautiful Beethoven piece in the darkened music room when she
thinks she’s alone. Slowly, Dot’s expressionless face and demeanor become irresistible to the characters who reveal their secrets
and yearnings to her as she in turn fills us in on her background in voice over (often while playing another of those exquisite
Beethoven pieces). With small encouragements, each begins to project the response and validation that they are looking for onto
Dot. The confessions of the male characters, the father and Connor are unsettling but Nina, in desperate need of Dot’s apparent
inner assurance, finally realizes she has found an ally. A bond forms between the two, light and dark (kind of like Glinda and
Elphaba in Wicked) and the film moves into The Comfort of Strangers and Heavenly Creatures territory and ratchets up the
melodrama. Though the relationship doesn’t become physical, there’s a distinct, palpable physical intimacy between Dot and Nina
and their later scenes carry a distinct erotic charge.
Donovan and Falco, who are both such talented, natural actors that their work is easily overlooked, turn in expert support as does
Ashmore in a tough part that’s alternately sunny and creepy (Connor is a very strange guy). As noted, the two leading women,
Cuthbert and Belle (so moving in another tale of surburban ennui, The Chumscrubber), do excellent work. Depending on your read,
this psychological drama is helped – or overstated – by the fact that the huge sprawling home in which the family lives is in the midst
of being redecorated by the mother and is mostly empty and the pretty but dissonant score composed of gongs, chimes and tinkling
pianos that echo in the hollow rooms by ambient musician Jeff Rona. I liked both and much else in this eerie little drama, too.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SPOILERS – BUT YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Why does Neil LaBute hate women so much? This question has been posed about the polarizing playwright and not terribly good
film director since his breakthrough movie, the misogynist’s wet dream, 1997’s In the Company of Men. Brutal portrayals of women as
castrating, power mad bitches, has run through seemingly everything he’s written. What Mel Gibson is to Jews and gays, LaBute has
been to women and now with LaBute’s latest male revenge fantasy, The Wicker Man, he goes off the Richter scale.
The idea to remake The Wicker Man, the offbeat 1973 British indie, an occult thriller centered on a man looking for a missing child
amongst a group practicing ancient pagan rituals on a secluded island, was a good one. Though the original enjoys a substantial
reputation among critics and film buffs, the general public hasn’t known much about this thriller. So what a nifty idea to transplant
the whole thing to America, ratchet up the suspense and tailor it to a leading man the likes of Nicolas Cage.
But handing the script writing and directing duties to LaBute is the picture’s downfall. The script, based on Peter Schaffer’s elegant
original, reorganizes the residents of the island (now located in the Northwest Pacific) into a group of sour, Hecate worshipping
harpies that refer to each other as “Sister Rose,” and “Sister Honey” and the like and are presided over by the seemingly benign but
“don’t fuck with me fellas” Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn). Into this cultish convent of earth mothers strides Cage as a cop with a
mission. With his thinning, dyed hair and dressed in a suit and tie (he's a dressy cop, even on vacation, I guess), Cage is
determined to find the missing child of his ex-fiance, the appropriately named Willow (Kate Beahan) who has written to him
imploring him to come to the island and help her. Beahan has the bee stung lips that every actress in Hollywood seems to crave at
the moment and they fit right in with all the beehives that the women are constantly attending for the honey (Tori Amos, with her
recent bee themed album always seems to be lurking just out of frame). But nothing, not even Beahan's sweet fat lips, it seems is
going to stop Cage from getting at the truth and he bulldozes his way through this female enclave. By loudly insisting that he’s a
cop (though from out of state) and that a missing child is serious business, he sweeps aside any protests from the women.
Up to this point the movie has held a fair amount of promise (believe it or not) but soon after, when Cage strides into the one room
schoolroom and bullies the female teacher and her little girl pupils the movie descends into camp and never recovers. One
unintentionally hilarious scene follows another as the women take out their revenge on this…this...drone...this…man who has
dared! to! sully! their! island! with! his! presence! Cage, who at the climax appears in a bear costume (now that’s suspenseful!)
finally ends up as the sacrifice to the goddess of fertility, burned alive as the ladies drone on and on in sensuous ecstasy as he goes
up in flames. All the while Cage, who falls through a rotted floor in a barn, is stung by bees that he’s allergic to (naturally), is
trapped in an underground, watery cavern overnight (but shows not a hint of being the worse for wear after being rescued), and gets
into a chop socky fight with Leelee Sobieski, never stops ACTING. This is the trap that Cage falls into time and again when he’s not
given a solid script or a director to reign in his melodramatic instincts.
It’s not hard to see why The Wicker Man was withheld from critics until the last possible moment – it’s a dreadful stinker (no internet
buzz would have helped, trust me, even though I'm a film critic). But it does have its good points – the production design is
fantastic as are the lush, green island locations, for example. Best of all, the film’s so camp I can’t wait for the DVD release
(probably being shipped from the factory as I write). I know what I’m screening at my next “Bad Movie Night” event. Boy are my
guests and I going to have fun.
If that’s not enough, the movie’s tired coda promises a slew of camp sequels to follow – plenty of opportunities for LaBute to swill his
misogyny across the screen. Wicker Man 2: the Bitches Are Back anyone?
Thrillers:
The Quiet-The Wicker Man
8-30-06 Knight at the Movies Column*
By Richard Knight, Jr.
The Quiet-The Wicker Man
8-30-06 Knight at the Movies Column*
By Richard Knight, Jr.
*Wicker Man screened after my WTC deadline but in time for me to include it here. For Chicago residents, in the second half of my
WTC column this week I wrote about Viva Pedro, the Almodovar fest that opens September 1 at the Music Box Theatre. It's highly
recommended and will include some of the gay director's acclaimed Spanish films.
WTC column this week I wrote about Viva Pedro, the Almodovar fest that opens September 1 at the Music Box Theatre. It's highly
recommended and will include some of the gay director's acclaimed Spanish films.