LULU ON THE BRIDGE (director/writer: Paul Auster; cinematographer: Alik Sakharov; cast: Harvey Keitel (Izzy), Mira Sorvino (Celia Burns), Willem Dafoe (Dr. Van Horn ), Gina Gershon (Hannah), Mandy Patinkin (Philip Kleinman), Vanessa Redgrave (Catherine Moore), Victor Argo (Pierre), 1998)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is writer Paul Auster's film debut as sole director, after doing a script for "Smoke" and co-directing with Wayne Wang, "Blue in the Face."
Jazz saxophonist Izzy Maurer (Harvey Keitel) is hit by a stray bullet while performing at a NYC nightclub and suffers from a collapsed lung, which will prevent him from playing the sax again. It also puts him in a depressed mood, as he says he would rather die than live and not play his music.The remainder of the film flounders in long stretches of unbelievable fantasy, some soothing touches of originality here and there, oodles of romantic schmaltz, and a story that can't hold up to intelligent scrutiny. But, then again, if you bought into the film's gimmicky filmmaking style and didn't think it was a smarty-arty pretentious ploy like I did, then maybe you can have a better feel for how the story transpired than I did.
Izzy's ex-wife Hannah (Gina) makes contact with him, and even though she is happy living with her new boyfriend, the producer Philip Kleinman (Mandy), and his young daughter, she tells him that she is concerned about him and reassures him, that once I gave you my heart, it's forever, even if I don't want to live with you anymore. This results in an invite to dinner at her place with Phil and Phil's guest who will direct his next film, the former actress and now director of a new production of "Pandora's Box," a contemporary remake of the film where Louise Brooks played the sexually liberated Lulu, in G.W. Pabst's silent masterpiece. This time Catherine Moore (Vanessa) is to be its director and is looking for a new face to play Lulu. Catherine gets a chance at the dinner table to tell Izzy, that she gave up acting because I didn't want to be invented by anyone, anymore. But the funniest conversation at the dinner table is reserved for one between Izzy and Phil, as Phil wants Izzy's opinion on what he would do if he found a piece of turd on an airplane toilet seat cover after an attractive lady left the toilet, like he did on a recent flight.
While the sixty-ish-looking Izzy is recovering from his wounds, a young waitress, Celia Burns (Mira Sorvino), who is an aspiring actress reports to work at the fancy restaurant she works at, and tells her boss, Pierre (Argo), that she just bought the CD of the sax player who won't ever play again and plans to listen to him play for the first-time when she gets off work.
Izzy, walking home from his ex's lower Manhattan apartment after his dinner engagement, stumbles upon a dead body, of a man identified as Stanley Mars and finds in his briefcase a napkin with a telephone number and a stone, which magically glows with a healing blue light when he darkens the room. The next day he calls the number on the napkin and its Celia Burn's number and by coincidence she is listening to his CD.
The stone causes the two strangers and unlikely lovers to feel connected to each other and thus starts a romance that is so syrupy, that before you know it, this love is so real to them that they are not only sleeping together right away but Izzy becomes a busboy in her restaurant because he can't stay away from her, even for a short time, their romance is that sticky. And, like the man says, his job is to be with her now all the time.
Another coincidence, is that Lulu is trying out for the part of Lulu in an audition. Naturally Izzy tells her that he'll speak to Phil and smooth things over.
At the restaurant, a patron gets fresh with the waitress and the hot-tempered Izzy rushes needlessly to her aid. He gets fired and she quits as a matter of principle, but is traumatized because she needs the money from the job, her acting is not coming along as well as she hoped it would.
But things change for the better when Catherine calls her and tells her that she got the part as Lulu and they will be soon filming in Dublin. Izzy tells her he'll join her there in a few days, but he never says why for the delay. But the reason becomes obvious when some thugs come questioning him about the stone and dislodge his apartment looking for it. You see, it was a contrivance for the script. The filmmaker must have thought it would work out better for the story if he gets jumped in NYC rather than in Dublin.
After the thugs are through with him, we find him held captive by a mysterious anthropologist, Dr. Van Horn (Dafoe), who questions him repeatedly about his childhood, in the empty warehouse they keep him locked up in. It was kind of campy fun to follow his line of questioning; it brought renewed vigor into the mystery part of the story, as an attempt was made to clean up all the syrup that was spilled from the preceeding scenes and get back on the trail of the meaning of the "stone."
All we get to know about the mystery of the stone is from Dr. Van Horn, as we hear him prattle on about how precious the stone is, and if in the right hands, such as his, how much good it can do. There will be no payoff regarding knowing about this mystery, which is a major problem with the film.
There is so much wrong with this film, that even when things are going well for it and it seems like there's some suspense and an intriguing bit of artiness thrown into the script, inevitably it is ruined by a story that just doesn't make sense, and even if it did make sense to those who are more tolerant of the film than I was, it still doesn't excuse the filmmaker from trying to be too clever and disguising his story as something it isn't. To be more precise in my critique, would be to give away the film's flimsy payoff, which would not be fair to those who haven't seen Lulu yet.
I just got the feeling Auster didn't know too much more about this mystery than the viewer did, and because of that the film is lacking substance. I also thought Keitel was too old to play the love interest of a much younger Sorvino, as their romance, the keystone of the film, failed to be inspiring, as it should have been for the film to have had any chance to be effective.
REVIEWED ON 11/20/99 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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