MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
So what's on your ideal movie checklist? Let's take a look at director Luis Mandoki's MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and see how it stacks up.
Beautiful people? Check. With Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn and Paul Newman, you've got them in spades.
Gorgeous images? Thanks to Caleb Deschanel's dazzling cinematography of glistening ocean waters and warm interior sets, you can put a big checkmark there.
Believable romantic chemistry? Another check. Costner and Penn are wonderful together and just as awkward as lovers in real life would be.
Now this is where the scoring gets tricky. How does your personal ranking system handle intelligent stars stuck in a heavily clichéd drama? In this case the whole audience knows what several of the key turning points have to be, and they're right.
And how many credits do you deduct when a completely ridiculous and implausible ending comes totally out of left field for the sole purpose of mass audience manipulation. Do you feel violated as a viewer?
In a movie that is as inviting and charming as it is annoying and infuriating, how to evaluate it is a tough call. Sometimes you're captivated, and other times you're exasperated. Will the good outweigh the bad for you? Maybe one of those personality tests would help. If you are in the hopelessly romantic category, you'll probably like the film's soap opera predictability and emotional shenanigans. On the other hand, if you' re more analytic, well … You get the idea.
The plot revolves around two people with huge voids in their hearts. As unassuming newspaper researcher Teresa Osborne, Robin Wright Penn plays against her usual tough-as-nails type. Teresa is a divorced single mom, who was happily married and planning a second kid when one day she saw her husband with another woman. Teresa is a beautifully shy sort who bursts into girlish giggles when she feels unsure of herself.
As Garret Blake, a repairer of broken ships, Kevin Costner plays a man whose heart bears what he thinks is the irreparable damage of a lost wife. The ever-melancholy Costner is well chosen as a man who sees himself as hopelessly cast adrift in a sea of sadness. When presented with a glimmer of happiness, he spends time watching his shoes rather than the person in front of him.
The setup for their meeting is a bottle containing a beautiful love letter that Garret wrote some time ago to his wife. In its confessional passages, he tries to atone for his sins of omission. He wasn't the husband he wished he had been. When Teresa accidentally discovers the poetic message, she launches into a quest to locate its author.
Teresa finds Garret early in the story but doesn't tell him about the message. The audience waits for the inevitable confrontation scene in which he discovers the truth and turns on her. Until this clichéd scene, they have a romance that's heavy on cuddling. A gentle and tender lover, Garret is fond of softly stroking Teresa's neck.
As Garret's father, Dodge, Paul Newman turns in a confident and sassy performance. Dodge is strictly a two-beer dad, who is full of carefully delivered advice for his son. For one, Dodge claims that his son's coffee is so terrible he shouldn't foist it off on any potential girlfriends. Dodge worries that Garret will let Teresa slip through his fingers. `If I was about a hundred and fifty years younger, you'd be in trouble young lady,' a handsome, smiling Dodge tells Teresa.
After a long romance that is quite sweet but meanders frequently, the movie comes to its maudlin conclusion. The result is a mixed bag of a movie – just right for some viewers but perhaps too clichéd for others.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE runs too long at 2:12. The movie is rated for PG-13 for sexuality and a little profanity and would be fine for kids 11 and up.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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