WAKING THE DEAD
Reviewed by Harvey Karten USA Films/Egg Pictures Director: Robert Dillon Writer: Keith Gordon, novel by Scott Spencer Cast: Tony Calabretta, Ivonne Coll, Jennifer Connelly, Billy Crudup, Paul Hipp, Hal Holbrook, Janet McTeer, Molly Parker, Leah Pinsent
"I see dead people," says Cole Sear in the key line of M. Night Shyamalan's "Sixth Sense." Last year's film--which marked a breakthrough for Bruce Willis (which he later squandered in the pathetic comedy "The Whole Nine Yards")- -enjoyed the most expertly engineered plot twist of any we've seen in 1999. "Waking the Dead" has a similar theme, though with a less than spellbinding conclusion, but gives hope to those of us who are more than eight years old. We too might relish the thrill of observing the dead. What you have to do is not so much to believe as to love. And boy, do you have to love deeply, so much so that your devotion transcends this mortal coil. That's just what Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) can effect in a film which its executive producer, Jodie Foster, feels is so strong, so captivating, that it simply had to be made. Compressing Scott Spencer's dense, 500-page novel into less than two hours, writer Robert Dillon succeeds to a reasonable extent under the helm of director Keith Gordon ("Mother Night"). This time around, Gordon does not have the unenviable job of adapting an enigmatic Kurt Vonnegut story of an American prisoner in an Israeli jail who had posed as a Nazi propagandist on the radio: but he is still fond of flashback techniques that flustered us in that film's audience. With "Waking the Dead" we take a dizzying path from the early eighties back to the early seventies again to the eighties and back again almost ad infinitum until every last romantic emotion and political idea is wrung from its two attractive principals.
"Waking the Dead" is not so much a supernatural tingler (though it is that) as it is a marriage between affairs of state and affairs of the heart--centering on a smashingly attractive performer with a Mediterranean image and an ambitious politician who often appears clueless. As Fielding Pierce, Crudup is introduced to us in 1974 as a private in the Coast Guard, a post he may have taken to avoid being sent to Southeast Asia during the closing months of the Vietnam War. Not for him the uncompromising path, the flight to Canada--which might have meant the throwing away of his future. But for the woman he meets at his hippie brother's (Paul Hipp's) publishing firm where she serves as an assistant, Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly), compromise is anathema. For Sarah and Fielding it's love at first sight, but like star-crossed lovers throughout history they are destined for an uneven future.
While Fielding, mentored for a seat in Congress by the well-connected Isaac Green (Hal Holbrook), walks the middle path, his great love is an uncompromising woman of the left who works through her church with a Chilean relief program. At one point she lashes out at a bigwig supporter of her boy friend's congressional campaign for writing a Newsweek article praising the violent overthrow of a democratically elected Chilean regime. When you look at Sarah, you think Sophocles' "Antigone," a pain-in-the-butt, unyielding force willing to die for her beliefs. Observe Fielding and you see a guy who has no real political program other than a vague sense that he will work for his constituents and later, pretentiously to help push America closer to being a paradise on earth. When Sarah is presumably killed by a car bomb planted by opponents of her outspoken campaign for Chilean democracy, Fielding is understandably shattered--so much so that at several key moments in his political battle he "sees" her, is certain that she is still alive, and believes that someone else was buried in her stead to give the enemy the impression that she had been eliminated.
Keith Gordon negotiates this passion-filled drama of love's intensity with a reasonable degree of success, his two principals conveying substantial chemistry. From the moment Fielding takes Sarah home after their first date (at which point Sarah coyly decides whether to invite him upstairs), to the drama of Fielding's brief breakdown in front of his supportive family, Gordon must assure us that the love of these two attractive people is so intense, so unyielding, that Fielding would break loose at one point to chase after his vision of the woman. We must consider that he would ultimately turn into a political Bulworth, inspired by her memory to make the world a better place. A minor flaw in the story is that we never find out exactly what it is that Sarah is doing that arouses the intense hatred of the right-wing Chilean forces since, after all, for the most part she is simply aiding poor refugees from that wonderful grape-producing country. What is of consequence is a fine performance by Crudup who at one point does a masculine emulation of Shakespeare's Ophelia--whose own unrequited love drives her to suicidal insanity.
The picture is overloaded with silly side characters, particularly Fielding's hippie brother Dan, who does a pale imitation of a weed-addicted publisher--certain to elicit unintentional laughter from the audience when he describes his falling in love with a Korean hooker in a massage parlor. Janet McTeer is knocked down a few pegs from her strong, lead performance in "Tumbleweeds" to a nothing role as Fielding's understanding sis. Jennifer Connelly's sporadic come-hither look, nicely photographed by Tom Richmond, is the most charming aspect of this movie, the romantic tone supported by some delightful soundtrack ballads from tomandandy. The big question: is she or isn't she? You'll have a strong impression of the answer to that one when you catch this generally rewarding film.
Rated R. Running Time: 103 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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