Saturday, 20 January 2001

SUNDANCE: DAY TWO

The first full day of Sundance 2001 was kind of like bad sex. Everyone seemed determinedly tired. No one seemed to be up for much of anything. And in spite of all that, people still got off.

My first real film this year was The Business of Strangers, a film that I didn’t expect a whole lot from, although I looked forward to watching Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles control the screen. My first film...my first pleasant surprise. Writer/director Patrick Stettner managed to pull off a number of hard-to-do-well things in his first feature. He wrote what was basically an in-a-room movie and gave it a natural flow, without leaving the audience feeling as though they were trapped watching people in a box. He took two actresses with highly contrasting styles and brought out the best of both of them. He walked the P.C. tightrope without falling off, though the threat runs through the entire movie. And he gave his film a complex ending instead of the cliché. The only thing I’d suggest is that he take it easy on his slightly exaggerated effort to make public spaces striking. He has rows of deep-blue plastic seats, four red-topped tables in an overhead shot, etc. Interesting the first three times, bothersome after that.

The film is, simply, about two women -- an aging and somewhat unhappy corporate climber, and a young, lanky, bad-a** babe -- and one man whose relationship with both women is somewhat of a cipher... for a while. The film keeps daring you not to believe the way the relationships blossom, but between Stettner’s script and the near-perfect performances of Stiles and Channing, you can’t help yourself.

In some ways -- although Ms. Channing felt differently when we discussed it later in the day -- the film is very much a gender-reversed version of In the Company of Men. Yes, the quixotic intentions of the two women in this film are quite different from the kind of long-defined intentions of the men in the Neil Labute film. However, The Business of Strangers would say that the nature of men and the nature of women are so different that I still think the reversal holds true. Both films make the viewer wonder about the boundaries that people set for themselves in their interactions with others.

Finally, I want to mention the work of cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci. It is rare that you see colors as rich as these in a film shot in four weeks. The subject matter is definitely high arthouse, but the look is studio level, all the way.

I ran from The Library to Eccles Theatre on a quest to see Donnie Darko, one of the buzz films of the festival and the guest film at our first-ever Roughcut Dinner last night. In what seems to be a new plan for Eccles, the theater is allotted 45 tickets for the media for each film, so waiting for the publicist to dig something up is a thing of the past...at least at that venue. I saw a lot of familiar faces at the earlier screening, but Donnie Darko drew (so to speak) all the Big Boys (and Girls). Sundance was rolling.

And then, there was the movie.

It’s not that I didn’t like Donnie Darko. I did. It was engaging and unusual and loaded with actors taking new turns. The film announces Jake Gyllenhaal as a hot young leading man, now seemingly a foot taller than he was in the wonderful October Sky. Jena Malone, a truly spectacular child actress, has grown up and brings the same weight to her teens that she did to her single-digit work. It’s easy to forget how good Mary McDonnell can be, even without dialogue. And Drew Barrymore is almost unrecognizable -- not so much in looks, but in spirit -- as a grown-up, one of Donnie’s teachers. It’s a chance for Drew to act with her eyes more than with her energy, and she pulls it off very convincingly.

It’s almost impossible to explain Donnie Darko without making it sound sillier and less involving than it is. Which is not to say that it is a masterwork. But the story of a boy who has visions/hallucinations involving both a six-foot bunny rabbit with sharp buck teeth and the end of the world doesn’t sound as clear as writer/director Richard Kelly makes it play.

In some ways, Donnie Darko is a psychotic clock movie. A countdown starts right near the top of the film and runs, though many winding passes, to the end. And in the end is where the ideas that drive the film start to get blurry. What really happens to Donnie and those around him? How many people are in on his maybe-fantasies? Why has this happened to Donnie? And is the religious subtext just a come-on?

I don’t have an answer, I’m afraid. Maybe I will in time. Maybe it will become clearer and clearer over time. Maybe it won’t. But while Donnie itself is a real question mark for me in terms of commercial viability, as well as some aesthetic levels, the film will be, I suspect, well remembered for things less rational. Head-turning casting choices...including Patrick Swayze as a Tony Robbins type who turns some fancy corners. A lot of style for a slacker-fest. Arguments about what really happens. And most of all, once again, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is not only shooting back-to-back-to-back movies these days, but who is really well liked by the crews on his projects -- a highly undervalued part of career building for an actor who wants to be an actor more than he wants to be a star. (And by the way, Jake’s sister Maggie is a babe who can act, and I expect that we will see her as a lot more than a sixth or seventh lead in projects to come.)

Our chat with the gang from The Business of Strangers was fun, though Julia Stiles, the "It" girl of the moment and a big chat draw, went M.I.A. We were upset, but not nearly as upset as In Style magazine, whose photo shoot she blew off. But Stockard Channing and Fred Weller were both charming and engaging.

A few steps back. The day started off with Barbet Schroeder’s compelling and enraging Our Lady of the Assassins, which I wrote about at Telluride and about which Ray Pride writes today. So I’ll restrain myself from an encore.

A small film that we caught on video before the festival began, LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton, is worthy of note as well. Susan Froemke, Deborah Dickson, and the living doc legend, Albert Maysles, made the film about Laura Lee (aka Lalee) and her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The film is connected to the history of cotton in the South and the poverty and lack of real opportunity that the industry foisted on four generations of black Americans. LaLee is the mother of "seven daughters and two sons who are still alive," a show of enormous restraint for someone coming from a family of 25 siblings. The family splits time in the doc with the area’s school superintendent, Reggie Barnes, who is desperate to get his district off the automatic probation that comes with a rating of less than two on a five-point scale. Barnes explains, from every angle, why a district like his has the deadly combination of special needs and inescapable poverty working against any educational progress.

This is a small story, certainly no epic Ken Burns doc. But it has something to say and it says it by bringing light to situations that seem unimaginable in this day and age. This is the heartbreaking tale of people who seem to be required to let go of their past to move into the future. That is not a happy thing. In other classes, people move out and up as a matter of choice. LaLee’s Kin seems to be telling us that in that culture, if your aspirations are as simple as being a garage mechanic or a therapeutic nurse, family is a weight that must be dropped. Very sad, but a simple reality for those stuck in this mire.

That’s all for now. I’m off to our Donnie Darko dinner and then, maybe, Super Troopers, even though the clip reel they sent out was a little less funny than LaLee’s Kin. Tomorrow, it’s Sleepy Time Gal, In the Bedroom, Raw Deal, a chat with Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch if I’m lucky, The American Astronaut, plus a dinner with the team from The Dish and who knows what else.

Until then...