THE REAL BLONDE A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
*1/2 (out of ****)
In the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever," Tiffany Case asks 007 whether he prefers brunettes to redheads. Bond's response is that it doesn't really matter, as long as collars and cuffs match.
Well, collars and cuffs don't match in "The Real Blonde." What might have sounded good on paper ends up as a largely unfunny, meandering comedy on screen.
The film, supposedly a satire of the superficiality of soap operas and the modeling business, is wafer thin. It plays like an "Ally McBeal" episode dragged out to the nth degree, replete with a few unnecessary "fantasy" sequences. Writer/director Tom DiCillo manages the material as if poking fun at daytime dramas is a fresh idea. It isn't. The only surprise here is that the talented DiCillo could make familiar terrain so dreary.
Matthew Modine plays Joe, a struggling actor waiting tables in order to pay the rent. He's 35 with no agent and no credits since he's too proud to take on roles in commercials or soap operas. "That's not really acting" he tells his girlfriend of six years, Mary (Catherine Keener), with whom he bickers constantly about sex. But they need the money, so Joe finally agrees to take a part in a Madonna video. But it's not really Madonna starring in the video but a lookalike (played by Elizabeth Berkley, still trying to jump-start her career after "Showgirls"). This points out how artificial this whole business is, one supposes.
DiCillo has referred to "The Real Blonde" as "off-kilter, but an interesting combination of all sorts of stuff..." The film, which wanders all over the place without getting anywhere, is remarkably *on*-kilter and, with perhaps the single exception of the always-likable Modine (who's not afraid to stand around in a very unattractive bathing suit surrounded by hunks), the entire cast is vague and uninteresting.
Catherine Keener, who's appeared in DiCillo's previous three films (including the brilliant "Living In Oblivion"), is at her most annoying in "The Real Blonde." Look at her closely; she really can't act at all. Her reactions are all wrong, almost always out of sync with her co-stars. She reacts too soon, or too late, to lines and situations. She moves her eyes, or her mouth, far too much. She frowns, she yells, she babbles--she blows chunks.
Maxwell Caulfield plays Joe's actor/waiter buddy Bob, the one obsessed with dating a "natural" blonde. Bob's personality (not to mention Caulfield's acting ability) parallels that of the character he plays on the soap opera "Passion Crest"--stiff and uninteresting. Maybe that's the point. Daryl Hannah is dim and uninteresting as the real blonde of the title, a soap dish who beds Bob both on- and off-camera. Hannah looks about fifty in this movie (she's only 37). Why is that? Almost all the women in the film wear tops that show their nipples. WHY IS THAT!? Marlo Thomas plays an uninteresting fashion photographer. Kathleen Turner plays an uninteresting talent agent. Buck Henry plays an uninteresting shrink. Christopher Lloyd plays an uninteresting caterer. And so on.
The best parts of the "The Real Blonde" are the beginning and the end, brief scenes of an elderly woman losing and then finding her dog. There's more depth and sincerity in a single close-up of her expressive face than in the entire film. While this contrast is supposedly meant to highlight the shallowness of the other characters' lives, the only thing that makes shallow and superficial interesting is if it's funny.
As blondes go, Tom DiCillo's latest is a really dumb one.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
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