MR. JONES
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Richard Gere, Lena Olin. Screenplay: Eric Roth & Michael Christofer. Director: Mike Figgis.
There was a point during MR. JONES when it occurred to me that if it had been made in French, someone might have championed it as an understated bit of high culture. It's well-directed, generally well-acted, and includes several meaningful closeups and a few piano performances. It also features a story which goes absolutely nowhere. If any film this year can be said to demonstrate a visual monotone, it's MR. JONES.
Richard Gere is Mr. Jones, a manic-depressive pianist turned construction worker. Jones is given to grand theatrics, such as poising himself on the edge of a roof and claiming he's going to fly, or jumping onstage at a symphony to conduct the orchestra. After such incidents, he is brought to a hospital where he is treated by Dr. Libby Bowen (Lena Olin), a jittery psychiatrist recently separated from her husband. Dr. Bowen wants to have Mr. Jones involuntarily committed, but he convinces a judge that he's merely a grandiose personality. However, he soon bottoms out of his euphoria, and voluntarily enters the hospital to be treated. Dr. Bowen becomes attracted to Mr. Jones' sense of living life on the edge and tries to help him exorcise his demons, getting closer and closer to crossing the line between therapist and patient.
A film like MR. JONES has to walk its own very fine line, being careful not to romanticize mental illness. Unfortunately, MR. JONES is doomed from the start because it's about a romance with a mentally ill man. Dr. Bowen is introduced as a compulsively late emotional wreck, and we are expected to see her become more serene and appreciative of life as she sees it through his eyes. Is the idea that one can only truly live while on the manic side of manic depression? Or that Dr. Bowen develops a protective love for this shattered man? Both concepts are fairly distasteful, and it makes it awfully hard for the love story to generate any resonance. It also hurts that Dr. Bowen's character is terribly underdeveloped. She is supposed to be the dynamic character in this piece, like Tom Cruise to Dustin Hoffman in RAIN MAN, but there's not a clear enough sense of where she's coming from to make where she's going compelling. MR. JONES is just a case of a poorly developed basic premise.
This basic premise is also undercut by a performance from Richard Gere which is excellent, but toned totally wrong for the film. It's a daring portrayal, never kooky just for the sake of being kooky (like Mary Stuart Masterson directing traffic with ping pong paddles in BENNY & JOON), and willing to dig into the darker corners of this disturbed man's psyche. The problem is that Gere is so good at conveying Jones' dark side that Dr. Bowen's attraction just doesn't make any sense. Lena Olin spends most of the film sporting a look of bewildered concern, and exactly where or why her attraction is supposed to begin is never clear. These two people seem to have been thrown into bed together simply for the expendience of the story, and not because of any character motivation.
Where MR. JONES is likely to lose most viewers, however, is a tone so muted that it's virtually inaudible. Everything is slowly, painstakingly framed, even those moments which are supposed to represent Mr. Jones' mania. There is virtually no underscore, causing far too many scenes to come off cold and clinical. Where some films beat you over the head with big emotions, MR. JONES seems to dare you to find any emotional attachment. It doesn't help that some scenes are poorly lit, and that in others Lena Olin's dialogue is almost completely incomprehensible. I want to admire MR. JONES for not leaning towards the sentimental, but it's no virtue to opt instead for comatose.
MR. JONES has been sitting on the shelf for a year or so, and it's easy to see why. It's a love story without much love, and a character study low on character. I was impressed by Richard Gere, but he alone isn't reason enough to spend two hours with Mr. Jones ... whose first name Dr. Bowen never bothers to ask.
Now *that's* love.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 mg of Haldol: 3.
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