LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Richard Kwietniowski Writer: Richard Kwietniowski (based on the novel by Gilbert Adair) Starring: John Hurt, Jason Priestly, Fiona Loewi, Sheila Hancock, Maury Chaykin, Gawn Grainer, Elizabeth Quinn, Bruce Filmore, Tom Hurst
One day, reclusive British Writer Giles De'Ath (John Hurt) locks himself out of his flat, and stumbles upon a poster advertising a screening of a film adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel. Arriving there, he's shocked to see that it's not really E.M. Forster, but instead a teen schlock film called "Hotpants College II," and that the Forster film was the prior week. But as he's getting up to leave, he stops, and the camera pulls in on his shocked face, which is frozen on the screen.
What he's seen is an actor on the screen who mesmerizes him for some untold reason. He sits down and watches the rest of the film, and when the credits come up, the film highlights the actor's name: Robbie Bostock (Jason Priestly - yes, THAT Jason Priestly), and Giles becomes completely obsessed with this man, awkwardly buying teen magazines, renting his films (with titles like "Tex Mex" and "Skin Marks"...but alas, no "Hotpants College I"). He even tells his maid that she is no longer allowed to clean in his study so that he can secretly watch his films, and make an album of cut-outs and what-not just like some pre-pubescent Leo DiCaprio-freak.
It's the alienated Giles messy attempt to re-enter society that this film is about, and, in fact, most of the film plays like a giant Fish-Out-of-Water film with substance. The film is a semi-comedy, semi-philosophical drama which gets most of its laughs from bits like Giles ordering a VCR but not understanding that you need a television to watch the tapes on, but also has the guts and brains to make something out of all this.
The first half of the film deals with his obsession with Robbie, but the second half has him taking a "vacation," if you will, in Chesterton, Long Island where Robbie apparently lives. There, he sets out on a quest to track down Robbie, and get to know him or something. Eventually, he does meet him, and he desperately tries to make it sound like it's really his fictitious niece who is in love with him, but can't help but tell him repeatedly how great he is. Things get generally uncomfortable from here.
"Love and Death on Long Island" has been said to have been based on certain themes in the novel "Death in Venice" (which I have yet to read, but yeah, it's next on my long list of books I have to read now), and I can only guess that some of those themes are the negative parts of seclusion, worshipping false idols, and alienation in general. But the film deals with all of these in mostly comical ways, making the film easier to digest and also more fun to discuss later on. As I watched the film, I was laughing a lot of the time at everything, but afterwards, I was thinking what the film was trying to say about everything.
Giles, who's brilliantly played by John Hurt (relatively unknown, unless you bring up the fact that he was the guy in "Alien" who had the alien pop out of his chest, and that he was the Elephant Man once, but you couldn't recognize him in the latter anyway), is portrayed not as a mere stupid man, but as one who is completely out of touch with reality. He has built an emotional and philosophical shield around himself, so much that when someone asks him in an interview if he owns a word processor, he just stares at her and says "Am I in the business of just processing words?"
That's why his obsession with Robbie is so great. We don't fully comprehend his obsession, although I doubt it's the homosexual obsession many people may find (he was married to a woman once, but she died, and we don't know his past or anything), but whatever it is, it's so huge that it grows out of control. By the time he's in Long Island and searching for his house by foot, we are near cringing everytime he gets closer to his target. And when he literally runs into Robbie's gorgeous model wife (Fiona Loewi) at the supermarket and gives her a false story, we can't believe he's gone this far.
But all of this is handled lightly, so as not to talk down to people. The film is just hilarious to watch, filled with lots of great quick comic moments, like a scene in a taxi where he rudely disses a cabbie's attempts to get him to put out a cigarette, or just weridly subtle characters, like a diner owner named Irv (Maury Chaykin, who's really making his rounds these days) who describes absolutely everything as "very attractive."
The performances are quite amazing as well. John Hurt gives what may be his best performance, which is a tough thing to beat, in my opinion. And Jason Priestly nails his performance. I really liked how his character wasn't a self-mockery or anything - it almost seems that this is exactly how Priestly is in real life, or at least used to be. I'm almost afraid to say this: he's great. Also giving great performances are Loewi as Priestly's wife, and Chaykin, who's humerous in every way, not just in his choice of hair cuts.
All this makes "Love and Death" a really fun film to watch, although some of it is uncomfortable in the same way "King of Comedy" is (although not that much, to tell the truth). It's a film that could be passed off as mere FOOW (Fish Out Of Water) material, but afterwards it can be looked at philosophically. Like the way Giles can look at something that seems kiddie and find something redeeming in it, you can look to this film with its false facade and find something even more redeeming.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
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