INTERSECTION
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Richard Gere, Sharon Stone, Lolita Davidovich. Screenplay: David Rayfiel & Marshall Brickman. Director: Mark Rydell.
Exactly when it happened, I can't put my finger on. For about half an hour of INTERSECTION, I was intrigued, and wondered whether I was on to my first guilty pleasure of 1994. Then, at some point, I began to realize that INTERSECTION was taking itself far too seriously. While the film is cleverly structured and reasonably well-acted, it began to irritate me that it was trying to turn a mid-life crisis into a great existential drama. Worse yet, it presented me with a "hero" I couldn't stand and an ending that left me angry.
As INTERSECTION opens, Vancouver architect Vincent Eastman (Richard Gere) is spinning his Mercedes into an oncoming truck. The rest of the film takes us back to the events leading up to that crash, as well as its immediate aftermath. We learn that Vincent is separated from his wife and business partner Sally (Sharon Stone), and living with journalist Olivia Marshak (Lolita Davidovich). Vincent and Olivia are planning to be married and to move into a house Vincent is designing, but Vincent still finds himself jealous of Sally's new relationship. Throughout are additional flashbacks to the early years of Vincent and Sally's marriage, and his first meetings with Olivia. Vincent finds himself torn between the two women, and his decision will place him on the road to that fateful encounter with a big rig.
As I noted, INTERSECTION's early scenes boast enough slickness and craft to lend the illusion of consequence. The lead performances by Gere, Stone and Davidovich are all understated, and Davidovich in particular generates quite a bit of audience sympathy. Efficient editing by Mark Warner and glossy photography by the talented Vilmos Zsigmond create a dreamy atmosphere, and James Newton Howard's jazzy score plays up the romance angle. The dialogue in the script by David Rayfiel and Marshall Brickman is snappy, keeping conversations lively enough to maintain interest.
It isn't all that long, however, before it becomes evident that there isn't all that much going on beneath INTERSECTION's shiny surface. The performers are "understated" primarily because there is so little substance to any of the characters. Olivia is perky and sweet, but it's never particularly clear why she's so into Vincent. Sally, in the flashback sequences, is made to appear icy and reserved, and one of those scenes is quite clever. Still, nothing in her character seems to justify Vincent's behavior, and this may be INTERSECTION's critical failing. Vincent never becomes a man facing a real problem; he's just a jerk playing both ends against the middle. It was impossible for me to work up any sympathy for a man who leaves his wife without ever discussing his problems with his marriage, then fires snide and jealous questions at her about a new boyfriend. To make matters even worse, the resolution is a complete cop-out, allowing Vincent somehow to make both women happy inadvertently. If it seems like I was expecting a morality tale...well, by the time it was over, I was.
But even those who allow Vincent more leeway than I did are likely to be turned off by Mark Rydell's heavy handed direction. Gere's angst ridden face is frequently in close-up, usually while driving; he probably ends up playing as many scenes with a steering wheel as he does with another actor. An antique clock becomes a distracting SYMBOL, and the omnipresent Northwest rain an objective correlative I could have done without. Frequent flashbacks and dream sequences make for a dizzying narrative. So many stylistic choices in INTERSECTION turned me off that I'm tempted not to mention the off-handed allusion to the fact that Vincent's 13-year-old daughter has an eating disorder.
Eh, why nitpick? Name it and it probably turned me off.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 mid-life crises: 3.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews