by Curtis Edmonds movienation@xoommail.com
To understand Rounders, you have to understand the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is not a great filmmaker or novelist, but a professor at the University of Chicago who studies creativity. He's best known for his 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
Professor Csikszentmihalyi's work focuses on what he terms "flow", that state where people reach their peak experience. Flow occurs when our skills are challenged by demands such that we immerse ourselves in whatever activity we undertake. To quote the professor, "Because of the total demand on psychic energy, a person in flow is completely focused. There is no space in consciousness for distracting thoughts, irrelevant feelings. Self-consciousness disappears. When a person's entire being is stretched in the full functioning of body and mind, whatever one does becomes worth doing for its own sake; living becomes its own justification."
For example: When I was in law school, I wrote two lengthy papers to write -- fifty-page monsters with hundreds of footnotes, placed just so. I'd sit down at my desk and write, and next thing you know, it would be four in the morning. I had blocked out everything. The world had narrowed itself to me and my notecards and my word processor.
However, I can't claim that I "flowed" my way though law school (sometimes, I feel like I "slept" my way through law school). Law school can be an ugly, depressing, soul-killing time, as Matt Damon finds out in Rounders. (You knew there was a segue in there somewhere, didn't you?) Damon plays a "rounder", a young poker player who prowls the mean streets of New York and the casinos of Atlantic city like a cat, looking to pounce on unsuspecting pigeons with more money than ability. After losing his stake to a Russian cardsharp named Teddy KGB (John Malkovich), Damon decamps and goes to law school, working his way through driving a pastry delivery truck.
Damon lands on his feet in law school, finding a cute girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) and a possible internship with a judge. But we get the sense from him that he's not happy, he's not using his skills to the finest. When his best friend Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison, the lure of easy money and fast times seduce Damon back into the world of high-stakes poker. (A dark, seedy, atmospheric world that's lovingly rendered and presented by director John Dahl.)
The conflict in the movie is whether Damon will choose Mol and an education and a career or choose to pursue his talents as a gambler. What makes Rounders so compelling is how it makes the latter choice seem more appealing than it otherwise might be. There are many factors involved in Damon's choice -- his loyalty to his friend, his (apparent) struggles in law school -- but the most important factor is that playing poker puts Damon in the "flow". He's able to lose himself in the game and test his skills against others. Damon is not playing poker because he's under a compulsion or an addiction, he's playing because he's good at it and can take pleasure in stretching his skills.
Rounders is more than just a great illustration of an important psychological concept, of course. It features fine performances from Damon and Norton, who is fantastic as the sleazy gambler Worm. Norton seems to have the idea of flow down pat as well, losing his identity and slipping neatly into the skin of whatever character he's playing. Malkovich, on the other hand, delivers a cartoonish performance as Damon's nemesis, who proves that it's a bad idea to play with your food.
Rounders is a sharp, classy, intellectual picture, buoyed by an intelligent script, sharp directing, and first-rate performances. Well, that about sums it up for this review. Hey! It's almost midnight! Where did the time go?
-- Curtis Edmonds
MovieNation: Movie Reviews in Black and White http://members.xoom.com/movienation movienation@xoommail.com
"No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it." -- Sideshow Bob
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews