Intermission

 

Colin Farrell unmasked.

(2003) Crime Comedy (IFC/MGM) Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, Colm Meaney, Shirley Henderson, Bryan F. O’Byrne, Deirdre O’Kane, Kelly Macdonald, Neili Conroy, David Wilmot, John Rogan, Kerry Condon, Owen Roe, Tom Farrelly, Michael McElhatton, Ger Ryan. Directed by John Crowley

Some movies are referred to as “slices of life,” and that can be a two-edged sword. For one, most of us go to the movies to escape life. Seeing a slice of someone else’s can serve to remind us of the things we went to the movies to escape from in the first place. Still, when done right, slice of life movies can give you a great deal of insight into the things that are happening in your own life, and a little wisdom never hurts in that regard.

The movie opens with a charming young man named Lehiff (Farrell) flirting with a young convenience store clerk (Condon) in Dublin. However, things take a shocking turn and Lehiff winds up being chased by the police. Meanwhile, on a nearby bus, a dissatisfied grocery clerk named John (Murphy) commiserates with a dissatisfied bus driver named Mick (O’Byrne) and John’s equally dissatisfied co-worker and friend named Oscar (Wilmot). John has just broken up with his gorgeous girlfriend Deirdre (Macdonald) and Oscar is having no luck with the ladies at all.

Deirdre responds by getting into an affair with Sam (McElhatton), a married banker. Sam’s wife Noeleen (O’Kane) is devastated. John, Oscar and Deirdre wind up at a pub where older folks hang out; Oscar and Deirdre wind up hooking up. In the meantime, Deirdre’s sister Sally (Henderson), who has a noticeable mustache, lashes out at nearly everyone who crosses her path despite the best efforts of their mum (Ryan). When Deirdre brings her new boyfriend home to meet the family, Sally can’t hide her contempt. At last, when Sam is about to leave, she stops him. “You stay right there, I’ll go – there’s a stench of adultery in here.”

Lehiff, who is mates with both John and Mick, manages to convince the two of them to aid him in a kidnapping and bank robbery involving Sam, which of course John is more than happy to participate in. However, police detective Jerry Lynch (Meaney), a man with a Celtic soul if ever there was one, is trolling the mean streets of Dublin to bring hoodlums to justice. So what if his car gets stolen during a drug bust? Lynch is as tough as nails, and he doesn’t like scumbags like Lehiff much. As all these stories are getting told, it is inevitable that these lives are going to collide.

This is a comedy that is so dark that you find yourself laughing and cringing simultaneously at times. Crowley has assembled a tremendous cast and they respond with solid performances that vie with one another for your attention. In fact, some of the performances are so good they create a little bit of a problem; you get so interested in the storyline of that particular character that you find yourself getting annoyed when another character’s storyline takes over. In fact, it is interesting to note that Ferrell, clearly the biggest star of the bunch, is not missed when he’s offscreen. Murphy gets the lion’s share of the screen time. While he’s done a couple of high-profile villain roles (in Batman Returns and Red Eye) he might be remembered best as the hero in 28 Days Later; those who liked him in that part will not be unsatisfied with his performance here. Meaney, best known here as Chief O’Brien from Star Trek, is gruff and rough around the edges, and while he’s a bit on the hypermale side, he’s still charming enough to make the character fascinating.

Frankly, the women are given fairly short shrift here (although Henderson is marvelous as the nasty-tempered Sally), but I found O’Kane’s performance as Noeleen to be a cut above most of the rest. As a middle-aged woman who has the rug cut out from under her when her husband takes up with a younger, prettier woman, she finds herself exploring her own sexuality and it is to our surprise (and no doubt, hers) that she turns out to be fairly aggressive in the bedroom.

There are several running jokes throughout. Although most will remember the constant conceit of John and cohorts putting brown steak sauce into their tea (sounds terribly revolting), I was particularly fond of the vile little boy in a red jacket, whose only function here is to periodically come onscreen and do terrible things to the main characters.

One of the things I liked the most about the movie was it’s setting. This is not the city center of Dublin, but rather its outskirts and you get a real feel for how people live there. Da Queen, who spent some time in Dublin in her youth (on a student exchange program), looked for landmarks she could recognize but at last realized that she was far more interested in the story and its characters and kind of gave up on the landmark search.

Lest we forget, let me tell you about the soundtrack. There are a number of Irish institutions who contribute songs, including U2 and Clannad, but also Farrell himself sings a credible version of the Bobby Fuller classic “I Fought the Law.” There are a number of other wonderful tracks, including songs by Magnetic Fields, Spandau Ballet, Ron Sexsmith, Turin Brakes and the Fun Lovin’ Criminals.

This is one of those movies you sometimes rent on a lark and are pleasantly surprised. I didn’t know much about Intermission before I rented it, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Now I feel compelled to turn others onto this very enjoyable movie. If you’re looking to take a chance on a movie you’re not familiar with, this is a movie worth seeking out.

WHY RENT THIS: Enjoyable performances from Meaney, O’Kane and Murphy and an awesome soundtrack. An interesting slice of life from the outskirts of Dublin.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Farrell’s character is a little bit underdeveloped.

FAMILY VALUES: Lots of sexuality and a lot of crude language. Some mature teenagers might find this enjoyable, but I wouldn’t want kids younger than that watching this.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the feature film directing debut of Crowley.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $4.9M on a $5M production budget. The movie lost money.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Hereafter

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It’s Complicated

It's just a little history repeating...

(Universal) Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, Rita Wilson, Alexandra Wentworth, Hunter Parrish, Zoe Kazan, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Emjay Anthony, Nora Dunn, Bruce Altman. Directed by Nancy Meyers

Life after divorce can be difficult. So can life after fifty. For a fifty-year-old divorced woman, creating an identity for yourself separate from the one created as a married woman can be an ongoing process.

Jane Adler (Streep) is a successful Santa Barbara bakery owner whose twenty-year marriage to her husband Jake (Baldwin) had ended ten years previously when he cheated on her. Jake wound up marrying Agness (Bell), the younger woman he’d cheated with and inheriting her son Pedro (Anthony), quite possibly the only five-year-old boy Marlo Thomas would punch in the face.

But Jane’s okay, having finally figured out how to live as a divorced woman. She has three adult children – Gabby (Kazan) who is the last to leave the house, Luke (Parrish) who has just graduated from college and Lauren (Fitzgerald) who is engaged to her boyfriend Harley (Krasinski) who has been accepted as “one of the family” already.

Through a convoluted set of circumstances, Jake and Jane wind up in a bar alone together and wind up drinking a lot of wine, do some dancing and end up in the sack. Jane is mortified at first but the attraction between her and Jake is undeniable. For his part, he has never really fallen out of love with his ex-life, especially since the marriage to his hormone-suffused new wife hasn’t turned out the way he thought it would.

Jane is very conflicted about her relationship with her ex, having become the other woman. Further muddying the waters is her architect Adam (Martin), a very nice guy who is helping her with a new addition to her rambling mansion overlooking the Pacific and to whom she has become seriously attracted to. She’s torn between her established relationship, which she isn’t sure is completely over, and the new one, which may hold the promise of something long-term.

Director Nancy Meyers has already explored middle-aged female sexuality in films like Something’s Gotta Give but she gets into the physical sexuality a little more here. Meyers, who also wrote and produced the movie, is becoming one of the more successful women in Tinseltown where female directors are rare.

Here, she has a great cast to work with and they deliver. Streep usually doesn’t play sexual, but she does it magnificently here. She’s a woman who is comfortable in her own skin, which is where her sexiness stems from. She is also not without her self-doubts, however, particularly about the rightness of her actions. Much of the movie revolves around her inner conflict about her relationship with Jake. She is used to be the one sacrificing for her husband and her kids; here she is doing something clearly for her own benefit and its something she’s not used to and not really comfortable with. That makes her pretty much every woman.

Baldwin has shown in “30 Rock” that he is a comic actor to be reckoned with and he continues his fine work here. His Jake is narcissistic, and prone to swaying in whatever direction the breeze is blowing. Like Streep’s Jane, you find yourself not able to really despise Baldwin’s Jake despite his objectionable actions.  

While Steve Martin can play the nice guy in his sleep, he gets to let loose a little bit during a scene at a party where he and Jane get stoned. There, he reminds you that he is one of the best comic actors in the business and has been for 30 years. This is one of his best performances in recent memory.

One note about John Krasinski. Most of you have probably only seen him in “The Office” if at all, but he does exceptionally well here as the future son-in-law who always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and possessing of too much information about everything. He is likable and funny; he could well be the next breakout comedy star to emerge from television.

There is much implied nudity here (although no genitalia – female or male – are shown explicitly) and quite frankly, these aren’t the hardbodies that you usually see in intimate scenes. Still, that’s one of the things I liked about the movie – it’s not about hotties copulating but more like real people. While seeing Baldwin’s hairy, pudgy physique (or Streep’s pasty white skin) may not do anything for you, they are more like the people you would actually hook up with were you out there hooking up.

At the heart of the movie there is sweetness, enough that Da Queen took a bigger liking to this movie than I did. It also doesn’t end necessarily the way you’d think it would or even hope it does. Think of this as a romantic comedy that most of us can relate to, even if the circumstances that it depicts are far more complicated a situation than most of us will ever find ourselves in. In any case, those of you not willing to wait in line for Avatar or not inclined to see it at all might consider this an alternative for your holiday moviegoing.

REASONS TO GO: The script is deft and funny. Streep, Baldwin, Martin and Krasinski deliver the goods, acting-wise.

REASONS TO STAY: I’m not sure I needed to see Alec Baldwin nude, even with his vitals covered.

FAMILY VALUES: Some sexuality and drug use. You may want to think twice before allowing smaller children to see this.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Martin previously worked with Meyers on the Father of the Bride movies.

HOME OR THEATER: As with most romantic comedies, a big screen is not an absolute necessity.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Akeelah and the Bee