Keeping
The Faith
I am a sap,
I know. My sapdom has been well documented in other places, and on occasion
within this selection of reviews. It might explain why, in this week of
extravagant riches filmwise, or at least a selection of the more interesting
films to be released this year (O Brother, Dancer in The Dark, The Cell,
Shaft) the film I wanted to see the most this week was a pretty formulaic
romantic comedy. I have got to the John Cusack point with Ben Stiller you
see, I need to see whatever he turns up in. Add to that Edward Norton -
great in Fight Club - and Jenna Elfman who was the best thing in Ed TV,
well I got sucked in. And, on the balance of things, relatively let down.
The main
problem with Keeping The Faith is its milieu. For better or worse it is
a New York religious, romantic comedy. Now we have already been on dodgy
ground in the last year with religious comedies, but Keeping The Faith
does not go into blasphemous territories. The main problem arises from
the fact that Stiller plays a Rabbi. So not only are we squarely in Neil
Simon and Woody Allen’s city, we are also in their synagogue. The comparisons,
especially the Neil Simon ones once the rather lousy and anachronistic
Elmer Bernstein score kicks in, can only harm the movie. Which is a pity
because, as I often say at this stage of the film, there is more than the
germ of a good movie in here.
The good
idea is pretty simple. Take three people, all of whom have jobs where the
wrong kind of relationship could destroy it. On one hand there is the hard
nosed female businesswoman. There are no rules of course about whether
she can or cannot date someone, but we have seen more than enough stereotypes
to know that her job is her life and if she gets sucked into romance it
destroys her self image. That however is nothing compared to our two male
characters who have vocations which strictly prohibit such a relationship.
In Ben Stiller’s Rabbi’s case it is the fact that Elfman’s businesswoman
is not Jewish. Ed Norton’s priest just is not supposed to date. Much tension
therefore ensues. And a few rather good one liners. Not enough though to
keep you rolling in the aisles. So instead it falls back on a rather predictable
love triangle plot and resolution, which requires our main characters to
act out of the character we have already got to know. And do it for too
long.
Keeping
The Faith is a pretty solid romantic comedy, which is pleasing wothout
being exceptional. The love triangle aspect is dealt with pretty swiftly,
leaving us with what in any other film would just be the commitment problem.
Here that problem should be bigger, but since the viewer cannot detatch
themselves from the standard plot machinations it never convinces. Much
of this is down to Edward Norton’s pedestrian direction. In a lot of ways
the interesting themes dealt with in the film would have been better served
outside the romantic comedy genre. It is a real dilema, giving up a vocation
for love, yet here it is seen as a given.
As the object
of holy affection Jenna Elfman is almost perfect. She looks the part, and
manages to both convince as a workaholic, and as friend to these too men.
It is a difficult role to be this paragon of virtue, but she does it lightly.
Stiller is solid as the Rabbi, and in consequence gets the best lines.
Nevertheless he does not really convince as a Rabbi, its as simple as having
too sticky up hair. Ed Norton convinces, and subsequently bores us a bit
as a priest. He also gives himself too little screen time to really build
the love triangle. Anne Bancroft puts in a nice turn as Stiller’s Jewish
mother - though she reminds you again of Neil Simon and the kind of film
this could have been. After a bright first twenty minutes the film is only
intermittently funny, bogged down by far too much plot. The last ten minutes
work pretty well, for merely having an almost Farrelly like twist to them,
but by then the damage has been done.
As I said,
the main problem with Keeping The Faith is merely that it would have been
done better by Woody Allen, and since it deals with his kind of themes
in his town the comparison is impossible to escape. He could have done
it with the same cast, much the same script (because some of the one liners
are beautiful) and would have made a much better film. Even so Keeping
The Faith did make me think a lot about its themes - unfortunately that
was often during the film when perhaps my attention should have been on
the screen. Not a good directorial debut, Keeping The Faith is watchable
but nothing special. The general feeling is must try harder. (5)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Barefoot In The Park, Annie Hall hits Working Girl
and Fiddler On the Roof. Or something half arsed like that would be.
Kiss
Me Kate
I thoroughly
understand the processes in making a 3-D film, it just so happens that
my eyes are not set up to process 3-D pictures. So while perhaps one of
the major selling points of this re-release of Cole Porter’s musical was
that it was in 3-D, this meant nothing to me. And apart from having to
still wear the glasses (I might not be able to process, but else I would
have seen the two competing images) it made little difference to me. I
went to see it because as an example of stupidly plush fifties musicals
it is perfect. Glorious Technicolor, lurid clothing and top songs a-go-go
- Kiss Me Kate has it all. It does not really need 3-D to make its point.
What is
most interesting about Kiss Me Kate, and one which is partially due to
its 3-D filming (it was actually filmed twice, once for 3-D and once 2-D)
is the way that the choreography and set design attempts to exploit this.
Whilst the dancing rarely gets any better than the almost opening number
- Ann Miller’s joyful romp around an apartment to Too Darn Hot, the depth
of the sets and high kicking into the screen does give the film an extra
degree of fluidity. It is an odd choice for a 3-D musical after all, so
much of it is set in the relatively restrictive scene of a theatre. That
said some imagination was added to the staging one thinks to toy with the
3-D filming. Imagination is also put into the general lushness of set design
- it just looks great if in no way realistic.
A musical
is only as good as its songs, and when Kiss Me Kate starts you do fear
that you may have wandered into a dud. The opening number is a ridiculous
piece of bombast sung almost operatically by the magnificently overacting
Howard Keel. Keel hams it up all the way through this, but with everything
else being over the top he fits perfectly. Luckily the songs settle down
to good comic musical numbers after that, some shoehorned in for no good
reason but interrupting the flow of the plot at least every five minutes.
This is possibly just as well because - for a musical - the plot of Kiss
Me Kate is labyrinthine. A divorced couple putting on a production of Kiss
Me Kate, Cole Porters new Taming Of The Shrew based musical, mix with a
dodgy betting debt, a love triangle and of course not forgetting the play
within the play. It certainly puts to shame any film suggesting it is post
modern and knowing now - this was in 1953 and is as self reflexive as any
modern piece of fluff. It also completely mucks up the last third of its
plot - when it threatens to go amusingly into His Girl Friday realms of
farce it merely returns with a weak, unfocussed reunion. But the
rest of the film is so much fun that you almost forgive it for that.
I have seen
a stage version of Kiss Me Kate and what always impresses is the fact that
only fifty percent of the songs really have anything to do with the plot.
Tracks like Too Darn Hot, Wunderbar and even Brush Up Your Shakespeare
do not really fit here but even the breakneck pace of the plot manages
to fit them in. Kathryn Grayson plays a very impressive Lilli Vanessi who
is nowhere near as Shrewish as the play within the play may suggest. Indeed
this is another film which wrestles at least playfully with the difficult
themes of The Taming Of The Shrew. That the ending is so lame suggests
it does not do as well as - say - 10 Things I Hate About You, but it does
have the benefit of the tunes and choreography to pick it up.
Kiss Me
Kate is an old fashioned musical, which is in itself an odd thing to say.
Nevertheless it comes before such fayre as West Side Story and Rodgers
and Hammerstein’s classics which were less studio. There is a palpable
pretence in the staging, and the plot nor the set (which is a theatre)
never really convince. Instead the entertainment comes wholly out of seeing
the gaudiness and actively participating in the fantasy. Musicals are by
their own nature ridiculous, to suggest otherwise seems perhaps a bit disingenuous.
And what could be more bizarre than taking something so artificial and
trying to make it more lifelike with 3-D. A high kicking (8)
IF THIS
FILM WERE A CAR CRASH: Well its The Taming Of The Shrew set to music with
a romantic subplot reminiscent of His Girl Friday. Add On The Town to that
and the House Of Wax (for 3-D fun) and you’ve got it.
