SOMEONE HAS SURVIVED
by Kristian Lin
ANASTASIA begins when the Bolshevik revolution overthrows the Russian tsars, and the reigning Romanov family is killed except for their youngest daughter, Anastasia (voiced by Meg Ryan). Ten years later, 18-year-old Anastasia is released from the orphanage and goes to St. Petersburg, where she meets a con artist named Dimitri (voiced by John Cusack). She doesn't remember her parentage, so Dimitri decides to try to pass her off as the missing Anastasia to collect the reward.
You don't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool monarchist to prefer the Romanov regime to what came afterwards. The tsars may have been just as oppressive as the Soviets, but at least they had an antique sort of charm (who could cuddle up to an apparatchik?). Those Easter eggs they had Faberge design were ruinously expensive toys at a time when millions were starving, but they were pretty, weren't they? And you feel a certain pity for the innocent Romanov children and their mother whose hysterical concern for her sick son made her prey to Rasputin's charms. You even feel for Tsar Nicholas, who died believing that the Russian people loved him and would save him (attested to by his bewildered last words upon being informed that he was about to be executed: "What? What?").
Still, this myth that little Anastasia Romanov somehow escaped her family's execution and lived on in Paris or Houston or wherever has always seemed like a royalist pipe dream. Why would presumably sane and intelligent people find comfort in the possible survival of the Romanov line? After all, the Soviet system was a repressive dictatorship, but nobody ever showed so much nostalgia for the Weimar Republic or the Emperor of China. Are people really so desperate to restore the mystique that royalty once brought to heads of state? The 20th century has seen some pretty nasty stuff brought into the world, but wanting to revert to the 19th century seems a rather extreme response.
It's probably churlish to expect historical accuracy from a kid's movie like ANASTASIA, but presenting imperial Russia as an enchanted paradise is stretching it a bit. To stretch even further, the Tsar is overthrown because Rasputin, who has sold his soul in exchange for magic powers, lays a curse on the Romanovs, thus causing the workers' uprising. What we have here is a Russian Revolution without Communism, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, or any mention of the grievances the people had against the royals. By 1927, the proletariat are singing happily of Anastasia's rumored survival, while seeming to regard Party officials as party poopers. This is really perverse.
What redeems ANASTASIA from its dramatic slackness and drab songs are the performances from the actors. The romantic plot between Anastasia and Dimitri is unusually sharp, funny, and well-written. Meg Ryan has better chemistry with Cusack than with any leading man since (dare we say it?) Billy Crystal in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY... Ryan seems to respond best to a leading man who's slightly disreputable. She overcomes her initial distaste to let herself be dazzled by a guy who knows how to break the rules in the right way. In turn, she dazzles the outlaw because she tempers her wholesomeness with a touch of eccentricity. That dynamic is present here where it wasn't with Matthew Broderick (ADDICTED TO LOVE), Tom Hanks (SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE), or even Dennis Quaid (FLESH AND BONE). Unfortunately, Ryan doesn't have the voice to carry off Anastasia's climactic confrontation with Rasputin, but she's more alert to her onscreen lover, and thus funnier and more charming, than she's been in years.
For his part, Cusack's always good at portraying a man living on his wits - I'd like to see him as Shakespeare's Hamlet. Like Michael Keaton, he's an actor whose characters seem to be constantly improvising their way through life's situations. Maybe that's why I've never been entirely convinced when the drama requires him to radically change his way of thinking, be it in BULLETS OVER BROADWAY or GROSSE POINTE BLANK; he's never given over to deep philosophical musings because he's too quick for that. Luckily, though, he's dead on as a romantic lead, and that's what makes his performances in those movies such rousing successes. He widens his eyes just a bit, and suddenly he's a guy who has fallen in love and will follow his woman down the right path as long as she'll lead him. He does something like that here. The fact that he can only be heard and not seen hampers him somewhat, but he and Ryan still make a perfect fit.
Kelsey Grammer, though, is wasted as Vladimir. The vaguely-defined part calls for someone with as much warmth as worldly wisdom, and Grammer, despite his plush baritone voice, isn't and has never been about warmth. He's meant to be an urbane wit with a neurotic streak, which he is on "Frasier." Vladimir is too content in his fallen gentility to suit Grammer. Hank Azaria's South Side of Chicago-accented bat is a hoot, and Bernadette Peters squeals delightfully as Grand Duchess Marie's silly cousin. A rhetorical question rather than a complaint: I'm a big fan of Kirsten Dunst, who voices young Anastasia, but Fox brings in Lacey Chabert (from "Party of Five") to sing for her. My question is, why go to such trouble? Why not cast Chabert in the speaking role as well, since she has proven that she can act?
As for Don Bluth's animation, it lacks the last ounce of Disney's polish, and the characters' faces could use a little more definition in close up, but the drawing still has its own splendor, especially when depicting Russia's imperial court. In the end, I was disappointed in ANASTASIA, not because it wasn't good, but because it's the first direct challenge to Disney's hegemony over the animated feature film market. In taking up the challenge, Fox created high expectations for its movie. ANASTASIA isn't the blockbuster success that you'd like to see open up the genre for competitors, but it's good enough to give us some hope for the next animated feature from a major studio. Let's hope this will inspire Disney to put as much care into their movies as they currently invest in their marketing campaigns.
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