HOLLYWOOD (Zap2it.com) - No, no, former white-rapper-and-underwear-model Marky Mark, aka Mark Wahlberg is not trying to play Cary Grant. 

That's maybe what you heard him say on the "David Letterman Show" last year when he was out promoting "Rock Star," but he didn't mean it like that, even though his director, Jonathan Demme, heard it and cringed and even wrote Wahlberg a nasty four-page letter.

"I'm not trying to play Cary Grant, I don't think anyone can play Cary Grant," says the 31-year-old Wahlberg, who doesn't even think the dashing British actor Hugh Grant is close to becoming the modern-day Cary Grant. 

However, Wahlberg is looking equally dashing these days, coming into an interview with Zap2it wearing a black suit and tie at the posh Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel. It's a far cry from the days he walked into press interviews wearing a T-shirt and jeans, looking like he just woke up, as he did when he was promoting past films such as "Perfect Storm," "Three Kings" and "Boogie Nights." He quips that he wears this new hot get up to the gym when he works out.

No, no, he's not that cool. Not yet.

Today he's out promoting "The Truth about Charlie," a re-tooling of the story of "Charade" that Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn starred in back in 1963. "Silence of the Lambs" Oscar-winning director Demme wanted to update the story with Thandie Newton, but always wanted Wahlberg to step away from trying to "do" a Cary Grant impersonation. 

"Mark would be someone to play more of a Steve McQueen character, not Cary Grant, no I just wanted him to play someone who was dashing and desirable and fun, but not Cary Grant," insists the director. 

Newton, who worked with Demme in "Beloved," tells Zap2it, "I haven’t met Cary Grant, but I have met Mark and there’s a lot to be said about his sex appeal. Cary Grant is the fox, but Mark has his something," says the actress, who plays the part of a woman who's caught up among men she isn't sure she can trust. Everyone around her, including her dead husband, and the mysterious stranger played by Wahlberg, seems to constantly change their identities and their stories. 

Set in Paris, the story is a swirl of deceptive undercover characters played by Tim Robbins, Ted Levine and with cameos by singers Charles Aznavour and Anna Karina. For Wahlberg, it's his second re-make of sorts, after 2001's "Planet of the Apes," but he readily admits he likes the original "Charade" much more than he liked the original sci-fi film he re-made. 

"They are both two interesting filmmakers Tim and Jonathan," Wahlberg explains. "Tim Burton is a guy who has done some incredible work, somebody who I never thought would have an opportunity to work with. He asked me to do it. I wasn’t a big fan of the original. I was well aware of the fact that (Charlton) Heston ran around in a loincloth for 90 percent of the film, which I did not want to do, but was willing to do. It was just about working with Tim and to learn something."

Known for his bad-boy past, Wahlberg says he's calmed down quite a bit from the days he was making headlines for trashing hotel rooms and getting into fights. 

"I have my moments, but yeah for the most part I am pretty quiet," he admits. "It's usually like two hours out of a day where I explode. I have my moments, it's usually if I have a drink or two." 

He's not out trying to impress the wrong people, now he's only trying to learn his craft as an actor, and has given up singing all together.

"When I was young I was a knucklehead. I did a lot of stupid things," he reflects. 

He's disappointed lately because the 5-foot-7 actor bulked up 45 pounds to do a cop drama called "Pride and Glory" which fell through a month before filming this year. 

"It’s a fantastic piece of material, I get to let loose again and play the bad guy which I haven’t done in awhile," he laughs. "I slowed my metabolism, it was fun the first two weeks, then you realize you have to wake up at 2 in the morning and eat a couple of In-N-Out burgers and you are still full from dinner at 10 and then you have to wake up at 6 and eat a stack of pancakes. It was rough and then for it to fall apart, that was tough. I hope we get the financing and I may get to do it after all." 

His next project is another movie loosely based on a 1969 heist film, called "The Italian Job," co-starring Edward Norton, Donald Sutherland and Charlize Theron. That takes him from Venice to Philadelphia, Los Angeles and to the Alps. 

 In "Truth About Charlie," Wahlberg speaks impressive French, which he says he learned while on the set of "Planet of the Apes" while preparing for the film. He flew from that set in Hawaii, all the way to Paris and was fitted for wardrobe as soon as he got off the plane. His life changed when he went to France, he says. "I broke up with my girlfriend a week after being there, fell in love four or five times, but way I look at life now it's not about who is trying to get me or who I better beat the s--- out of," he sighs. 

"Working in France, you're required to drink a bottle of wine at lunch and so by the second half of the day, you are a little sluggish you know. It's hard to keep up with that sort of pace," he smiles. "They are used to it." 

Wahlberg also smiles about his seductive Zambian-born co-star, who also appeared in "Mission Impossible II" and "Interview with a Vampire." They work differently.

"She just wouldn’t shut up. She’s a funny gal. I am not very talkative in the morning and I am very focused when I work," he explains. "She's very sexy, except that she's married. Big turn-off." 

He's remaining rather spiritual, being raised Catholic, and says, "It's not something that I certainly try to advertise. There are certain things that I don’t agree with in the Catholic Church, but all this horrible stuff that’s come out all happened for a reason too."

"It was a tough road getting to where I am, but looking back no, it seems like nothing you know. I'm 31 years old, my whole life ahead of me. I have an opportunity to make a difference in kids like myself and you know that’s wonderful," says Wahlberg, who speaks at Boys Clubs to troubled youths. He talks about drugs, delinquency and controlling anger, problems he had when he was a rebellious teen. 

And those days, like the music, are gone. 

"When I became successful in music, people were approaching me to act. I could play the white rapper in 'Sister Act II' and such. But then I met Penny Marshall and Danny DeVito who thought I could really do this thing and you know, they were going to allow me to do something completely different and at that point ('Renaissance Man'), and they gave me that break. Now people say what about another album, like Will Smith did, and I'm saying, 'No way.'"

With that, he adjusts his suit, shakes hands and says, "Next time."

Director, screenwriter and producer Jonathan Demme has come a long way from his industry roots as a film reviewer, PR guy, and apprentice to indie mentor and B-movie filmmaker Roger Corman. With over 15 films to his credit, including the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Beloved, Something Wild and Melvin and Howard, Demme has directed films that have attracted a total of 20 Academy Award nominations. He has also produced such films as Devil in a Blue Dress and Tom Hanks’ directorial debut That Thing You Do!.

Demme, who formed his busy Clinica Estetico company in 1990, has also helmed music-videos for such artists as Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen and won acclaim for cutting-edge documentaries like Swimming to Cambodia, Cousin Bobby, and the National Society of Film Critics award-winner Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film. A longtime human-rights advocate, Demme also produced the Oscar-nominated biography Mandela and is completing The Agronomist, a documentary about assassinated Haitian radio journalist Jean Dominique.

Universal’s Oct. 25 release The Truth About Charlie, a remake of the classic Charade now starring Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg as an endangered widow and her seemingly slippery suitor, marks Demme’s first studio feature in four years. Redoing the legendary 1963 comedy thriller that starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in career-topping roles wasn’t just an act of bravery on Demme’s part. It was also an act of love—his love for the original, of course, but also for the French New Wave, French culture, Paris and music.

But the initial inspiration for tackling such a daunting remake—which, like the original, also deals with a Paris-based widow and her mysterious, handsome suitor who are brought together by the murder of her even more mysterious husband—came from Charlie co-star Thandie Newton. Demme explains.

Jonathan Demme: I came off Beloved having had such a really splendid experience with Thandie Newton, who’s fearless, deep and endlessly interesting to look at. I felt she has the potential of an actress that rivals the best of people working today, so I was actively hoping to find something that could reunite us. Just by chance, I saw Charade again one night. It’s one of my favorite films of all time, but it had been a while since I had seen it. I thought if [Charade director] Stanley Donen would give me permission to remake this, it would be the perfect way to showcase Thandie as the fabulously contemporary young woman that she is. So I called Mr. Donen. He was incredibly gracious. We had a simple conversation in which I asked: How would you feel about your great picture Charade being remade? He said by whom and I said by me, and he said that sounds like a terrific idea. So, with his blessing, I hurtled forward and went to Universal, who released the original. They, too, thought it was a terrific idea. Thandie wasn’t attached yet because my co-writers and I first spent a year-and-a-half on the script. But from the get-go, I told Universal I was hoping the project would afford Thandie an opportunity for a starring role and they were intrigued by that.

Film Journal International: Have Stanley Donen or [Charade screenwriter] Peter Stone seen Charlie?

JD: Stanley wishes me all the luck in the world with the picture but doesn't want to burden himself at the moment with having to tell people how he feels about it. However, Peter has come around. I’ve known these gentlemen a long time from being in New York. Now, there’s a certain level here of someone taking your child, reshaping it and claiming it for your own. But I think Peter’s ready and will see it at one of the next screenings. Needless to say, these will be screenings that will have my adrenaline going.

FJI: How did Mark Wahlberg get involved?

JD: I originally wanted to do a film with Will Smith and Charade struck me as that opportunity. But he got busy on Ali and, with the script ready and Universal excited, we had the pressure of the actors’ strike looming. So I met some other actors. They were very good but not right for the part. We heard that Mark Wahlberg was available since he was just finishing Planet of the Apes, and Universal was particularly intrigued by the possibility of his involvement. And I was deeply impressed by him in Boogie Nights and totally knocked out by him in Three Kings. I met Mark and, since I did not want to emulate Cary Grant, which is not doable with anybody, plus I wanted to take a completely different direction, I thought: This sweet, bright, rough-edged young man is the anti-Cary Grant. And I liked Mark a lot and our mutual good friend [Boogie Nights director] Paul Thomas Anderson said, “Do it,” so we went for it.

FJI: The different directions you took in this remake also include your multicultural approach to the story.

JD: There are two reasons for that. If you’re going to tell a Paris story now, you’re stuck with a multicultural approach because Paris is such a multicultural mecca. It always was so, but now it’s so overt. And, secondly, my heart sinks a bit when I realize I’m watching an all-white movie.

FJI: And you enhance the multicultural aspect of the film with a fantastic soundtrack and wide array of artists, people like Anna Karina, Malcolm McLaren and Charles Aznavour to Les Negresses Vertes, Khaled, Gotan Project, Chaba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui. It’s very new world and crackling. How did music become so important to you?

JD: When I was seven, I ran into the front room to look out the window and watch my mom carrying my new baby brother from the car. In the background, I heard on the  radio Nat King Cole’s “Lady of Spain” and the mood was perfect, indelible. Maybe it was from that moment on that I understood the power of music. I was already a fanatical radio listener, because radio was all we had. But I was struck by the impact of music on mood. Or what happens when exquisite image is married to exquisite music. In fact, my favorites parts of the [filmmaking] process are, first, watching great actors work live in front of the camera and, secondly, playing with the music component when a picture is finished, meaning trying out thousands of songs, seeing what works and finding the most dynamic choices.

FJI: You pay a special homage to singer/actor Charles Aznavour.

JD: Yes, I wrote him into the script because the movie that made me move from loving movies to loving cinema was Truffaut’s 1965 Shoot the Piano Player, in which he stars. And the exact moment in that film was when they did that crazy cutaway, when following the line “If I'm lying, may my mother fall dead,” there’s that cut to a picture of the old lady collapsing and dying. It blew my mind. So I decided if I'm going to Paris, home of the Nouvelle Vague and French cinema which I love so much, I’m gonna get a salute in there to Shoot the Piano Player. So I actually worked in a clip from the film, when Joshua [Wahlberg] romances Reggie [Newton] with the Aznavour album.

FJI: Besides Aznavour, you have a number of other fun cameos and references. I’m talking about [French filmmaker and photographer] Agnes Varda, Nouvelle Vague icon Anna Karina and even the Hotel Langlois, which is no doubt a homage to Henri Langlois.

JD: Yes, all homages. Varda has such a magnificent look, she just takes over the picture for those few seconds as that flea-market denizen. It’s a disturbing, ominous moment, but important because she holds the key to what everyone in the film is looking for. Anna Karina sings the tango song, which she wrote for us. Of course, the film is very much a heartfelt salute to the Nouvelle Vague and French cinema, so the Hotel Langlois name was done on purpose. It had been the Hotel de la Croisade, but our art department did the Hotel Langlois sign, which the hotel’s management asked to keep. They not only kept the sign, they officially renamed the hotel.

FJI: Maybe that’s the first time a movie got a hotel renamed.
JD: Well, the first time I’ve been involved with that happening. But I think it’s about time there is a hotel named after Henri Langlois, the legendary creator of the Cinematheque Francaise. But there are so many other layers of jokes in the movie. For instance, when Reggie tails Joshua to the toy store, you can briefly see in the window a dollhouse hotel which is the Hotel Langlois. And the truck Varda loads her supplies into says on its side Les Parapluies de Cousin Jacques [a reference to Varda’s late director husband Jacques Demy, best known for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg]. I love to pretend that I’m the long lost cousin of Demy. He was a great guy, a great filmmaker.

FJI: The camerawork in Charlie was also spectacular, appropriately nervous and immediate and very effective in terms of marrying style and content.

JD: Yes, everything was handheld. I didn't want to try to emulate Donen's high, elegant approach and style. And I felt there was a kind of kismet kind of coincidence that Charade was shot in 1963 in the full flush of the Nouvelle Vague, when handheld reigned. So I decided we’d do the Nouvelle Vague version of Charade and shoot in as unhinged a style as possible. We never bolted a camera onto a tripod, even when we didn't want the camera to move. There were no Steadicams, no dollies. But there was a partially deflated soccer ball we put the camera on to get some movement. My cinematographer Tak Fujimoto’s young camera operator Pierre Morel is brilliant. He was so full of ideas, so intuitive. Like the way he would prowl the actors’ faces with the camera. 

FJI: Your Paris locations were great. What were the plusses and minuses of shooting on location. And was that the first time you did so?

JD: I shot one Corman film in the Philippines in the ’70s. There were no minuses in the Paris shoot. I had an all-French crew except for Tak. Everyone was great, really committed to the picture. Plus, you can’t find an unphotogenic part of Paris. And it helps that people in the street are very blasé. They don’t look into the camera, so you don’t need extras. The only thing I couldn't get into was the wine at lunch. Our lunches weren’t long, but there was wine out on the table. At first, I thought this might be great, but after wine one day and needing a nap that afternoon, I realized the wine thing wasn’t for me. But the Paris experience was so great, I'd do anything to shoot another film there.

FJI: You must have been torn between making a homage to Charade and wanting to make it all your own.

JD: I feel that what we've done is make a very fresh new movie that can stand on its own but is also so infused with love and respect for the original. And it’s also infused with a desire to play games with the original and with the audience that has seen the original. With Charlie, we’re saying: Come on in! We're gonna switch genres and moods on you, give you a bunch of clues that may or not mean something, including stuff from the original that may or may not count. And we’re giving you some new characters who you never saw in the original, like Charlie [Stephen Dillane as the widow’s mysteriously murdered husband who left behind something everyone else is literally killing for] and Charlie’s mother. 

FJI: And Mark Wahlberg gets to show off a few words of French and Thandie Newton gets to show off a bit of charming Audrey Hepburn-sounding British dialogue. 

JD: Yes, Mark learned the few words of French he needed. And Thandie does sometimes sound like Hepburn. Being a very intelligent and very humanistic woman, she has a lot in common with Hepburn, besides their adorable British accents. I think Thandie will surprise some people because, in some of her previous films, she either had little to say or spoke in a Southern American accent. 

FJI: You came from PR,  but with Corman you learned the craft of filmmaking. What from those early days of cheapie filmmaking has stayed with you and helped the most?

JD: Corman had a couple of rules he shared with new filmmakers. One was to try to treat all of your characters, regardless of how small or large their roles, as though they're leads, because that will enrich the experience for the viewer and enrich the connections of all the characters in the story. He also taught you, and I love this, never to forget that the vital human organ involved in watching movies is the eyeball. So a fundamental rule is to never let the eyes become bored, because if they become bored visually, they become bored with the movie.

Many people won't know the truth about Jonathan Demme's "The Truth About Charlie." Opening today in Bay Area theaters, the new film is a remake of 1963's "Charade," a great Hollywood entertainment.

Peter Stone's original screenplay perfectly combines romance, mystery and comedy with a genuinely surprising twist. Director Stanley Donen pieced everything together with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in the leads and a supporting cast to drool over: Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and others. 

All this, and it's set in Paris, too.

In the new film, Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton take on the Grant and Hepburn roles. Newton plays Regina Lampert, who's married to Charlie, who gets murdered in the opening minutes. 

She quickly finds out from a cop, Bartholomew (Tim Robbins), that her husband's former partners (Park Joong-Hoon, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Ted Levine) are looking for money he stole. Presumably, the money is somewhere among Charlie's belongings that are now in Regina's possession.

Joshua Peters (Wahlberg) is the guy who comes to Regina's rescue.

It goes without saying that Grant and Hepburn clicked; they had chemistry to throw away. Here, Newton manages to fill the Hepburn bill quite nicely (something Julia Ormond didn't do in the remake of "Sabrina.") Newton is sweet, tiny, exotic -- and regal. From the way he photographs her, it's clear that Demme's a little in love with her.

Wahlberg, on the other hand, is miscast, and as awful here as he was in "Planet of the Apes." The method actor withdraws so deeply into himself, he forgets to react to the other characters. He looks as if he's in a different movie, or asleep. He can't even begin to compare to Grant, possibly the screen's greatest actor.

The similarly miscast Robbins plays the Matthau role as if he suddenly woke up there. Robbins probably made the mistake of watching the original and got intimidated by Matthau's one-of-a-kind jowly line readings. He even tries on a Matthau-like drawl, pronouncing "Mrs. Lampert" the way Matthau did, and he sounds ridiculous.

Demme copies the original plot, including the same bad guy and the same surprise twist. While he was filming in France, he got the idea to dedicate the movie to the great 1960s French New Wave films. So he cast Charles Aznavour (Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player"), Anna Karina (Godard's "Vivre sa vie") and director Agnes Varda ("The Gleaners and I") in small roles and cameos.

The main problem with "The Truth About Charlie" is that the two elements simply don't mix. "Charade," a product of the most mainstream factory filmmaking, depended on its crafty, tightly woven plot with hairpin turns. The French New Wave is characterized by loose, improvised stories based on intellectual rants and emotional reactions.

In other words, "The Truth About Charlie" can do nothing to stop the oil drifting apart from the water.

Demme's loose approach kills the suspense. The big twist, a mind-blowing moment in Donen's version, appears almost as an afterthought here (a minor character reveals the surprise).

Then Demme wraps things up with a stupid chase, a shootout and a standoff.

Sometimes it's fun to see a favorite movie remade. If it works, it can be a little like seeing a film for the first time. Demme started with the right idea; he appears to be having fun and not intimidated by the original material.

But "The Truth About Charlie" fails not because of the original. It fails all on its own.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes -- even if it means wearing a beret."

So said Mark Wahlberg when he flew straight from the set of "Planet of the Apes" to Paris to begin filming "The Truth About Charlie." Such willingness to sacrifice came in handy since what Wahlberg, co-star Thandie Newton and filmmaker Jonathan Demme were attempting was a pretty tall order. Basically, they were trying to re-create perfection.

"The Truth About Charlie" is a remake of Stanley Donen's stylish 1963 romantic thriller, "Charade." The movie paired Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, both working at the top of their games, sported a clever screenplay by Peter Stone, a radiant Henry Mancini theme and a treasure trove of unforgettable Parisian images shot by Donen, who was best-known for musicals like "Singing in the Rain." 

Demme knows all of this; in fact, he counts himself as one of "Charade"s' biggest fans. But after having come off a trio of dark, serious-minded films -- "Silence of the Lambs," "Philadelphia" and "Beloved' -- Demme wanted to find something light. And he desperately wanted to find something that would show off Newton, his friend and "Beloved" collaborator, in a way that presented her as the "dazzling, fabulous contemporary woman" that Demme says she is.

So when Demme saw "Charade" three years ago at one of the regular movie nights he hosts at his office in Rockland County, N.Y., he thought a remake of the movie would satisfy both of his aims. Much later, he invited Newton to dinner at his house and screened the movie for her.

"I wanted her take on it," Demme says. "Little did she know I had been working on the script for a year and a half."

Giving it weight
Little, too, did Newton know that Demme would continue tinkering with the script on a daily basis while shooting the film on location in Paris and continue laboring on the project in the editing room for more than a year after wrapping production. 

"I kind of thought this was going to be a straight romantic-comedy," Newton says. "Jonathan just kept adding more things and fleshed out the supporting characters because he was fascinated by them. So it did depart from what I thought it was going to be and that's not a disappointment. I'm just still waiting to make that lovely, easygoing, straight romantic- comedy someday."

That Demme wound up with three very different versions of his film is no surprise, considering the ease in which the original "Charade" skips across genres. The movie follows a young woman (Hepburn in the original, Newton in "Charlie") who must contend with a trio of thugs looking for the money her just-murdered husband left behind. Complicating matters is that the man (Grant/Wahlberg) so kindly helping her through the mess isn't what he seems, either. But that doesn't stop her from falling in love with him, even though he may well be her husband's murderer.

Once he began filming, Demme became more and more interested in pushing the material's darker elements, playing up the suspense and heartbreak. That added suspense and a small bit of fear to the process for the actors, who weren't always sure what their director wanted from day to day.

"We had to figure it out as we went along," Wahlberg says. "There were a lot of things during the process that were a tad bit difficult. There was a lot of improvising. I like to know my lines and I like to know what other people were saying. And once he (Demme) started going off the page, that was the only time I was uncomfortable."

Says Newton: "It was scary sometimes because I never had a sense of how it was all going to hang together. I never did."

Truth be told, Demme wasn't sure, either, until he took a couple of passes in the editing room.

"The first version we came up with was too heavy, and I wasn't happy with that because the motivation for this movie was to be fun," Demme says. "So we started losing scenes that were maybe too dark, too scary or too sad and replacing music that was too dark with music that was appropriately engaging. We wanted to reassure the audience and tell them, 'Don't worry. This is light, this is fun, folks.'"

New Wave homage
Newton calls the finished product a "dreamscape of Jonathan Demme." Demme laughs at the description, admitting the movie is "splattered with the reflections of things that I love and have loved in films."

Wanting to avoid the high-style elegance that infused Donen's "Charade," Demme shot most of "Charlie" with hand-held cameras in the streets of Paris, giving the film a bracing immediacy. He also frequently used digital video in scenes where characters' inner thoughts are revealed. 

"Stanley Donen was shooting 'Charade' in Paris in 1963 and meanwhile, around the same time, the French New Wave directors were making classics like 'Shoot the Piano Player' (Francois Truffaut) and 'A Woman Is a Woman' (Jean-Luc Godard). So my idea was this: Stanley is shooting 'Charade' and around the corner Agnes Varda is shooting 'Cleo From 5 to 7' with her handheld cameras. Let's swap crews. Let's turn the style of 'Charade' upside down."

The result, as rendered by acclaimed cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, is a visual style that's every bit as distinctive -- and impressive -- as Donen's. Taking his salute a step further, Demme filled his cast with New Wave stalwarts like Godard regular Anna Karina, Varda and French entertainer Charles Aznavour, who personally serenades the lovers with a ballad in the movie's closing scene. (Earlier in the movie, Wahlberg seduces Newton using an Aznavour album.)

"This is a movie that's in love with its characters, in love with Paris, in love with the New Wave and it's also in love with 'Charade,'" Demme says with no small degree of enthusiasm. "It's the slightly unhinged offspring to a fabulous parent."

The question that director Jonathan Demme keeps getting asked is: "Why?" 

Why did he choose to remake the stylish 1963 romantic thriller "Charade," starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn? For one thing, he feels that time is on his side. After all, almost 40 years have passed since the original came out. "I think it has passed the statute of limitations on remakes," says Mr. Demme. "I think we have a new picture." 

In the new version, Regina (Thandie Newton in Hepburn's role) discovers that her husband has been murdered and everything they owned has been sold. 

No one knows what has happened to the money, but a variety of characters have a deadly interest in finding out, including a helpful man who turns out to have several identities (Mark Wahlberg). 

Instead of simply doing a straight remake, Demme says he offers a "brand new interpretation" of the material. For the leads, he picked Mr. Wahlberg and Ms. Newton ("Mission: Impossible 2"), so younger audiences could relate to them. 

Wahlberg is much closer in age to Newton than Grant was to Hepburn, and that changed the romantic dynamic. Demme recalled a scene where Wahlberg was playing a bit too much to his character's dark side. 

The director told him to be nicer. "And he would say, 'I don't think I can be. I'm lying to her.' And I said, 'Exactly. Overcompensate. Be too sweet.'" 

The lack of iconic star power and the similarity in age makes for a more conventional "young couple on the run" plot. It's basically the same story line - even down to a few key twists. The differences are in the details - the parts played by James Coburn and Ned Glass are now a black woman and an Asian man. 

For savvier film viewers, living up to the original may be impossible. But Demme said the original's director, Stanley Donen, gave the project his blessing, and "Charade" writer Peter Stone contributed to the new script under the name Peter Joshua (one of the names Grant's character adopts in the original.) 

Demme realized the impossibility of re-creating the Grant/Hepburn chemistry, so he didn't even try to duplicate it. 

"Audrey Hepburn is someone I always loved in movies so much," he says. "Thandie has that, too. She's got that big heart and sense of decency. That's why I wanted her." 

Newton herself says that in order to feel free to work they basically "had to ignore 'Charade.' " 

The one actor who seems to be inspired by the original is Tim Robbins, cast as the embassy official played by Walter Matthau. However, Demme puts a fresh spin on his character, including a different twist at the end. 

As the father of teenagers, Demme says it's not easy finding appropriate entertainment. That's where "The Truth About Charlie" comes in. It also doesn't have a lot of explosions, bathroom humor, or sex scenes. "This movie is a testament to the teens of America that they can have a blast without all that other stuff." 

He thinks that his film, rated PG-13, will find a younger audience not familiar with the earlier film. "They never even heard of Cary Grant," he says. 

Despite such comments, Demme - whose credits include "Philadelphia," and "Silence of the Lambs" - is no Philistine. Indeed, the 50-something director has peppered the Paris-set film with references to the French New Wave of the 1950s and '60s. 

There's a clip of Francois Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player," and an appearance by Charles Aznavour, who starred in it, as well as Jean-Luc Godard's frequent leading lady, Anna Karina. "I couldn't resist the impulse to acknowledge how much French film meant to me," he says. 

The film carries additional meaning and satisfaction for him because several projects before this never took off. It's his first film since 1998's "Beloved," which also starred Newton. 

Ironically, another current remake has links to Demme, although he had nothing to do with it. "Red Dragon" is a remake of the 1986 film "Manhunter," the first of the stories about murderer Hannibal Lecter who was immortalized in Demme's "Silence of the Lambs" (1991). 'Red Dragon" allows actor Anthony Hopkins to play the part of Lecter for the third time after having won an Oscar for his performance under Demme's direction. 

"I have kind of a paternal glow," says Demme of the latest film. "I wish I had a piece of it." 

Argue all you want against the freakish ideas Jonathan Demme has applied to "The Truth About Charlie," his remake of that entertaining Hollywood suspense trifle "Charade."

Say the multicultural approach to casting and music is too p.c. Perhaps, but complaining is awfully mean-spirited.

Casting Mark Wahlberg in a role immortalized by Cary Grant is one of the most profoundly bad ideas in movie history? We're with you on that one.

Shooting the thing like a Jean-Luc Godard movie of the same 1963 vintage as "Charade," with all kinds of other references to the French New Wave tossed in to the point of distraction, is a sign of overindulgence on the part of a middle-age, self-satisfyingly Oscared director? 

Well, yes. But about that last one: If the New Wave aesthetic was what inspired cinematographer Tak Fujimoto to come up with the richest, most exciting series of original images in any movie this year, then at least one wrongheaded idea turned out sublimely right. The director of photography, who has traditionally done his best work for Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs," "Beloved"), turns this Paris-set movie pinwheel into an invigorating kaleidoscope of fresh angles, clever compositions and kinetic ingenuity.

That's probably not enough to salvage the rest of the mess for most people. But on a purely cinematic level, the absence of a single cliched shot did the trick for me.

Those familiar with Stanley Donen's original Hitchcockian romp will here discern much of the same plot that Grant and Audrey Hepburn tripped lightly through, even if the current cast is more prone to just plain tripping.

OK, that was a cheap shot, at least where Thandie Newton is concerned. While certainly no one's idea of a next-generation Hepburn -- it will take several more centuries of dedicated biogenetics before that formula can be copied -- the young British-African actress does possess enough grace and acting ability to get us on her side as the confused, sudden widow who doesn't know why half the creeps in France are out to get her.

As for Wahlberg, well, Demme has loudly announced that he wasn't trying to get the stolid "Planet of the Apes" star to mimic Grant at all. Good thing, too, since Wahlberg has a hard enough time convincing us that his identity-shifting American can simultaneously seduce and scare Newton's Regina Lambert. He's not bad, really, just bereft of the extra personality chromosome that would make such a shady character enticing enough to buy. And while Wahlberg looks surprisingly good in a fedora, sticking him under a beret is an idea that even Calvin Klein knew well enough to avoid.

As for the other crooks, Tim Robbins appears to be attempting some kind of imitation of Walter Matthau in the embassy guy role. Charlie's three former henchpeople are played by "Silence" psycho-killer Ted Levine, Korean superstar Joong-Hoon Park and "The Practice"s' Lisa Gay Hamilton, with a scar. No hand hook in sight, though, and it is missed.

Also making self-referential/reverential appearances are New Wave actors Charles Aznavour and Anna Karina and director Agnes Varda, as well as an arresting hodge podge of older and newer French actresses. And if you aren't totally fed up with this snazzy-looking but uninvolving exercise by its finale, stick around for a cool Demme in-joke during the closing credits.

It's one more weird bit of fun in this beautiful shattered mirror of a movie that only knows how to be fun in weird ways.