directed by Sam Mendes
starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch
Meet the Burnham family. Dad, Lester, is depressed and caught in a mid-life crisis. Mom, Carolyn, is trying hard to project an image of success even as her life crumbles around her. Daughter, Jane, is your typical confused, angry teen who wishes someone would put her Dad out of his misery.
Q Says:
when this movie was released i had little interest in seeing it. i liked the poster and i liked kevin spacey mainly ‘cos of “se7en” but i just didn’t care about the subject matter.
i had a projectionist friend who worked with me at the grand cinema and he was really excited about the movie. he talked about it all the time and watched the trailer 10 times a day. the night before it opened they were gonna show it and he asked me to stay and watch it with him. i agreed reluctantly and was actually glad i stayed.
the movie has a slow haunting feel. it felt like i was watching a ghost story. i like the approach that sam mendes takes with each scene, setting them up perfectly and letting things just happen. you are led subtly to things the director thinks are important, like, angela touching lester for the first time. the score by thomas newman enhances this with a haunting, yet, quirky score. the score for the fantasy sequences are just a little off-kilter so you know it isn’t real life.
kevin spacey is brilliant here. his use of understatement with flashes of over-the-top are perfect. his transformation from milquetoast to “man” is perfectly paced and not overdone or overblown. you can almost feel the drool from spacey when he first sees mena suvari. spacey’s performance is very reminiscent of jack lemmon, who is one of my favorite actors especially in “save the tiger”.
annette bening is a powerhouse! she literally chews up the screen: “what is this? is this not a plant?”. wes bentley is weird and creepy. chris cooper is great as always. thora birch is kinda annoying and suvari is really good as angela.
there are a few things that i don’t like about this movie. one is the drug use. call me a fuddy-duddy but i’ve never enjoyed seeing people get drunk or high in movies. second is the “beautiful” videos that bentley’s character talks about. the stupid bag flying around is boring.
overall, this is a good movie. at the time, i thought it deserved the oscar but now i think “the sixth sense” got robbed.
i will see this movie again…but it might be another few years.
L Says:
In a word: overrated.
In many words: I have heard a lot about this movie. "Oh, it is so great! You should see it! Kevin Spacey should win an Oscar!" Usually, when people go on and on about a movie, I am reluctant to see it. (Titanic, Avatar, Twilight, The Godfather) This was my first time. My first thought was, that it had a Twin Peaks feel. Some dream-like sequences, families hiding secrets, a shocking murder. I really liked the way it was shot. I loved the way some of the scenes were framed. For example, when Jane (Thora Birch) is asking Ricky (Wes Bentley) about what happened that got him sent to a mental hospital, she is filming him with a handheld camera, and it is playing on a TV just to the left of her. Or, when Carolyn returns home that rainy night repeating, "I am not a victim", she pulls up in front of her house and across the yard and through the rain, we see the home's red door shining under the porch light. It just feels like someone really paid attention to the look of the scene.
I think this movie was excellently cast. Kevin Spacey was pretty great as Lester. He starts off quiet and walked all over, especially by his wife and daughter. Then, he meets Jane's friend, Angela and it is like he has come out of a coma and found something to live for. He quits his job, starts working out, and buys a mid-life crisis car. Annette Bening as his cold-blooded wife is perfect. The two have excellent chemistry and really give you the feeling of a marriage gone wrong. I love the montage of her preparing for an open house. She frantically cleans windows, vacuums, and scrubs tile, all while chanting one of her mantras. There is a shot after she fails to sell the home of her, framed in front of the sliding glass door with the blinds closed, that is one of the best shots in the entire movie. I liked whenever she came on screen and wanted to see more of her. Thora Birch was good as a teenager. Probably because she was a teenager when this movie was shot. Mena Suvari's character was reminiscent of Sherilyn Fenn's character in Twin Peaks. Both were made out to be these sexy, desirable young women. In my opinion, Suvari is cute, but not quite sexy. I like how she teases Lester and flirts with him. Wes Bentley was kind of creepy with his secret filming of the family next door. But, in a way, I could see what he was talking about when he said there was so much beauty in the world. (I liked the plastic bag footage.) Chris Cooper was excellent, as usual. It took me the entire movie to realize that he was in it.
Overrated, yes, but still a really, really good movie. This is not a movie I would have bought, but I would not mind seeing it again.
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