FILM TITLE: FEARLESS DIRECTOR: PETER WEIR COUNTRY: USA 1993 CINEMATOGRAPHY: Allen Daviau MUSIC: Maurice Jarre CAST: Jeff Bridges(Max), Isabella Rossellini(Mrs.. Kline), Tom Hulce(Lawyer), Rosie Perez(Carla), John Torturro SUPER FEATURES: It's Peter Weir.... SCREENPLAY BY: Rafael Yglesias, from his own novel.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Weir has been on a roll for a long time. His characters are always in a very careful high wire act, on the verge of falling either way into an emotional pit. It is no real suroeise, to see that this film follows that same pattern. At least, this film has a feeling that the person who wrote it knows a little more about the whole subject than not, and it may be just because the screenplay writer, was also the person who wrote the novel.
FEARLESS is not a difficult story, but it is one of those "event" type of stories that require a little time to "heal" itself, and to work itself out. The story is a one liner. A plane crashes, and a few people survive. And those who do can remember the details in, do so in a sort of guilty style, like they should apologize for being alive and not having died. Max has been in an invincible form since, not needing to solve his own problems. And while he is in this form, and capable of helping others ( as it turns out ), his own body is resistant to a few events, like the fact that he is allergic to strawberries. Carla has been feeling awful, because her own child died, just seconds after she let go of him from her hands. Various others are also in a disarray of an emotional stress.
And the film is really about Max, and his ability to help out a few of the plane survivors, specially Carla.
With some very nice performances by Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez, this film is rather nice to watch, and never crosses the line of bad taste, or into the realm of horror. It is about those people's fears, and lack of understanding, since the accident. A tough subject... a tougher story, requiring a tough director to lead it. There are similarities here to the film THE HERO, where Dustin Hoffman has a similar role. Here things are better defined. There a supreme acting job made the film.
3 1/2 GIBLOONS Member of the Internet Movie Critics Association
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