THE PROPOSITION
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. PolyGram Filmed Entertainment/ Interscope Director: Lesli Linka Glatter Writer: Rick Ramage Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Madeleine Stowe, William Hurt, Neil Patrick Harris, Robert Loggia, Josef Sommer, Blythe Danner, David Byrd
Not all propositions are indecent proposals, but cinema today has less use than ever for affairs freely entered between consenting adults, the sorts of liaisons that do not hurt anyone. In "Indecent Proposal" (1993) Robert Redford proposed to give one million dollars for a night to remember with Demi Moore and the audience wondered why HE would have to pay HER. In "The Proposition," the issue--one which would be considered vulgar by some, respectable by others--is more complex and with a better script could have been more involving. Arthur Barret (William Hurt), a fabulously wealthy lawyer, is sterile, unable to present the wife he adores, Eleanor (Madeleine Stowe) with the child she so intensely craves. Through an intermediary, Hannibal Thurman (Robert Loggia), Arthur hires a bright young stud, Roger Martin (Neil Patrick Harris), offering $25,000 if he would spend a night with his wife so that she would have what she so desperately wants. Would you believe that he at first refuses, even after seeing the beautiful Eleanor? But hormones triumph over ethics, and when the youthful Harvard graduate falls in love with his conquest in just one night threatening to expose his benefactor for the pimp he considers him to be, the boy must be eliminated.
"The Proposition" is an uneasy mix of soap opera and feminism with an occasional burst of clever humor. Situated in the Boston of 1935, the tale is told in flashback by Father Michael McKinnon (Kenneth Branagh), whose role in the melodramatic yarn is not entirely priestly. In typical potboiler mode, the story focuses on the growing affection between Eleanor and the priest who turns out to be the nephew of the affluent Arthur, a man who entered the priesthood to get back at his father--who was materialistic almost to the point of treason. Suggesting Kennedy-style with specific reference to Joseph Kennedy, Lesli Linka Glatter's production displays the pomp and palatial splendor of the Barret estate, complete with a head servant, Syril (Blythe Danner), who is dressed as elegantly as the woman of the house and who has more than employee-employer feelings for her boss, adding to the class politics of the drama.
For feminist resonance, Rick Ramage's screenplay portrays Eleanor as a novelist in the style of Virginia Woolf, a woman who despite her love for her husband has a separate room-- all the more convenient for both the welcome and the unwelcome trysts. Despite some droll moments, particularly in the lovemaking scene between the callow Roger and the sophisticated and understanding beauty, the performers take themselves entirely too seriously. Though he hired the young man to perform studly services, Barret conspicuously scowls from his car at the Don Juan has created and later admits that he hated the boy. Even worse, Father Michael is insufferably solemn throughout, displaying his displeasure at the follies of moneyed aristocrats, particularly when they invest their money in Germany at a time that Americans are out of work in appalling numbers. Despite his rugged good looks, you wonder how Eleanor could become so animated over this priggish man of the cloth whose hormones do battle with his oath to the church, the victor never in doubt.
David Brisbin's production design is impressive, featuring the stately autos of the 1930s and Anna B. Sheppard's costume design seems right on the money. But the drama becomes too fogged by suds to offer the clarity of a well- developed fable. Rated R. Running time: 114 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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