August 20, 2002

Mostly Martha
(Paramount Classics) Rated PG
Release Date -August 16, 2002

Wenn Sie "deutschen cinema," das erste Ding denken, das zu Gemüt kommt, ist romanisch und Komödie, Recht?

Drei Sterne aka Mostly Martha is a smart, adult-minded romantic comedy that continues the recent run of quality titles such as Italian for Beginners, Mifune, Late Marriage and others.  The story will sound familiar – An uptight professional woman is forced to embrace the love of her niece, which opens her up to a possible romance with a man who lives at a temperature 10 degrees higher than her at all times.

But Sandra Nettelbeck, who makes her American debut with this film, finds more than the easy or the obvious for her central character.  Mostly Martha runs purely on emotion, centered around three characters, each of whom wears his or her heart on, under or in another room than their sleeve. 

Martina Gedeck is quite good as Martha, letting her emotions swing as wildly as they might in real life, but never losing the thread of the character and the audience with it.   This is a woman who is beautiful but plain… sexy and still built like a real woman.  She seems to be on edge, waiting for the worst in every frame, yet underneath her apron she always seems to be wearing clothing that accentuates her bosom and clings to her backside, not as a flower looking to be pollinated, but as a woman who loves to feel, to taste and to please others, all the while unwilling to open up until the right moment. 

As the 8-year-old niece who is stuck with her unbalanced aunt while she also mourns the loss of her mother, Maxime Foerste is excellent.  She is, to me, more beautiful than Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby and infinitely more wise.  I caught Kubrick’s Lolita the other night on TCM and while Sue Lyon was twice Ms. Foerste’s age, there was a similar sense of knowingness and willfulness that matched. (Note: Don’t misunderstand.  There is nothing sexual about the 8-year-old’s story in this film.)

The one performance that I suspect will lead to a career in Hollywood is Sergio Castellitto’s.  He is the Italian “fifth wheel,” who takes up a spot in Martha’s kitchen.  (An unintended euphemism.)   Castellitto is a better looking answer to Jean Reno and he’s five years younger.  Also, Mostly Martha is his third foray into American distribution this year, with The Last Kiss and Va Savoir also out there.  He will be “discovered.”  One can easily imagine Mr. Castellitto handling the action roles that have made Reno famous, but Castellitto has a more gentle handle on comedy than his French predecessor.  (Reno starred in one of France’s biggest comedy hits ever, The Visitors.  His recreation of the role in English marks the lowest point in his American career and remains one of the biggest English-language money losers ever.)

It’s hard to imagine any audience not enjoying Mostly Martha.  To try to answer why anyone would dislike this film, I went to Rotten Tomatoes and found one of the few negative reviews, from The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt.  He wrote, “The main problem here is that Martha is a real head-scratcher.”  And there it is.  If you want answers… if you want Big Night… if you want to the film to be French… you might actually be disappointed.  But if you want a romantic comedy that reflects the romantic comedy of real life, you are going to enjoy Mostly Martha.