METROLAND (director: Philip Saville; screenwriter: Adrian Hodge/based on the novel by Julian Barnes; cinematographer: Jean-François Robin; cast: Christian Bale (Chris Lloyd), Emily Watson (Marion), Lee Ross (Toni), Elsa Zylberstein (Annick), John Wood (Retired Commuter), 1997)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The phone rings at 5:30 am in the home of advertising man Chris Lloyd (Bale) and his wife Marion (Watson) and their baby girl. When the phone rings that early, Marion says she expects bad news. It's 1977 and this bourgeois couple in their early 30s, who live in the London suburb of Eastwood, a community once optimistically dubbed the place of the future, that had plans to link this commuter railroad all over England and to the continent, but all that fell through and it it is now just a typical bedroom suburban community with a train to the city. A retired commuter (Wood), will tell Chris on his last commute after 45-years, that "Metroland" is not a place but a state of mind."
The trouble, on the phone, turns out to be Toni (Ross), the best friend of Chris and a reminder of his rebellious days as a bohemian in the '60s, and someone Marion detests for his anger and the blame he casts on others for his failure to be a recognized poet. In other words, she knows that he is a phony. But he is Chris' life-long friend, someone he has lost contact with for the past 5-years, except for the occasional postcard, like the one that said: "Africa's where it's happening. Vibrant culture. Great people. Thinking of hanging out here for a while. Eat the rich. Love, Toni." If I got a postcard like that, I would think of getting a new best friend. Anyway, that starts a rather predictable meeting with his old friend and the beginning of a cliche-ridden story about a mid-life crisis that the restless Chris is having with his decision to live in the suburbs, as he is yearning for the good old days of being free from marriage and responsibilities. Toni upon meeting him, tells him he has become like his parents.
This is a story which turns out to be so flat and without emotion and plays like a film you can almost swear you saw before even if you didn't, that's how forgettable and regretable the story and the acting are. It almost makes you wonder what the filmmaker is trying to say about this trite conundrum his protaganist has. The film never comes to any surprises or reveals anything you wouldn't have known if you didn't see the film. Which is why, I would think the sensible thing to do for those who value how they spend their time, would be to avoid this one. At least, that's what I would do if I had it to do over. But that's not to say that the film was so terrible that it can't be seen, that would not be true, since it is not so bad as it is a case of it being so dull that it negates any enjoyment value.
Toni fills Chris in on his life, telling him that he was teaching a writing course in California and seducing his female students (isn't that charming!), and being a world-wide traveller. He is also someone who is constantly berating his friend for being bourgeois without even asking him if he is happy about his decision to go from being a free-lance photographer living in Paris to such a hopelessly middle-class situation here. Why Toni is a poet, we have to take as a statement of fact coming from the filmmaker, because he appears like an obnoxious jerk and an actor who is badly miscast, and there was no evidence given in the film that he shows even enough intelligence to spell poet, let alone to even consider him to be a poet.
The film flips back and forth between the Beatlemania-era of the early '60s and the suburbs of the '70s, as it uses the means of flashback to show Chris then and now, as he wonders how his life would have turned out if he stayed with his upfront, sexually free girlfriend in Paris, Annick (Zylberstein), who had no trouble fitting in with the other actors playing their parts, as she also gave a zombie-like performance. Chris, as a bohemian, was too pathetic to seriously believe and not funny enough to laugh at. But what was really laughable, was the filmmaker's bourgeois conception of what a bohemian is.
What's left for the story to tell, are those predictable scenes of the friend who is not the friend he pretends to be, but someone who is jealous of his friend' material comforts and satisfying marriage. The task of getting all this straight for our befuddled hero's handsome head, is his solid wife, and she will tell our hero this even if he finds it so hard to believe.
In one flashback scene, I was personally annoyed to hear one of my favorite French directors, Robert Bresson, have his name being dropped by Chris when he asks Annick, "Do you want to see a film? There's a new Bresson playing. "This film will not be mistaken for a Bresson. Trust me on that.
The film was able to muster one great line of dialogue, and it comes from Marion, as she tells her hapless hubby, "You will get married because you are not original enough not to." The worst line in the movie is when Chris realizes he has a good thing going with Marion and tells her his reason for not fooling around with another woman, "Who wants fast-food if you can eat at the Ritz."
REVIEWED ON 11/18/99 GRADE: D
Dennis Schwartz: " Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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