JOE GOULD'S SECRET (USA Films) Starring: Ian Holm, Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Hope Davis. Screenplay: Howard A. Rodman, based on articles by Joseph Mitchell. Producers: Beth Alexander, Stanley Tucci and Charles Weinstock. Director: Stanley Tucci. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes, brief nudity) Running Time: 104 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
With JOE GOULD'S SECRET, Stanley Tucci continues his development as a film-maker. 1996's BIG NIGHT, co-directed with Campbell Scott, was a beautiful low-key gem, easily one of that year's best films. 1998's THE IMPOSTORS, Tucci's debut as a solo director, was an amusing but slight piece of episodic farce. Now comes JOE GOULD'S SECRET, a fact-based slice of Americana that moseys along inertly in search of a compelling point. Yes indeed, Tucci's development as a film-maker continues -- slowly but steadily -- in reverse.
Tucci's tale is drawn from the writings of 1950s "New Yorker" writer Joseph Mitchell (played by Tucci) about one of his more fascinating subjects. A low-key, Southern-born essayist, Mitchell learns of a colorful character named Joe Gould (Ian Holm), a Harvard-educated homeless man held in high regard by many members of the Gotham intelligentsia. Gould is said to be working on an oral history of the people of New York, a magnum opus of common man commentary and observational narrative Gould says runs well over a million words. Mitchell turns Gould into the subject of one of his profile pieces, turning Gould into an even bigger bohemian celebrity in the process. But that's not the end of the story for Mitchell, who finds that Gould has become unusually attached to his "biographer."
There's no question that the eccentric Gould makes for just as interesting a character today as he would have made 40 years ago. It just never appears that Tucci knows exactly what to do with that character. He fiddles about with analogies between Josephs Gould and Mitchell as deliberate writers and human chroniclers, suggesting the very fine line between those who can manage their neuroses and those who can't. He toys with notions of celebrity, touching on the absurdity of those who become famous for being famous. He nods at the ever-popular fine line between genius and madness. And that's about all he does with any of his themes -- he fiddles and toys and nods, leaving JOE GOULD'S SECRET to drift along with little more than its value as historical curiosity to hold it all together.
Mostly, Tucci indulges Ian Holm as Gould. It's the kind of role that screams for Oscar attention, infinitely more flamboyant than Holm's devastating turn in THE SWEET HEREAFTER yet infinitely less deserving of praise. Sometimes Holm nails the sad soul of the exhibitionist Gould, and even when the performance isn't perfect it's still plenty interesting to watch. The same is true of Tucci's performance, which takes on an interesting edge as Mitchell finds himself plainly annoyed by his inability to close the book on his Gould story exactly when he wants to. The interplay between Holm and Tucci makes for most of the best moments in JOE GOULD'S SECRET, but there's always the nagging sense that this should have been more than a showy character study.
Every once in a while, Tucci makes the kind of interesting film-making choices that show what he's capable of. There are a few crafty sequences in which characters duck in and out of the frame, the individual speakers subjugated to the conversation and the space between them. There are also dozens of tiny distractions that make hard to view JOE GOULD'S SECRET as more than a potentially provocative missed opportunity. It's ironic that the story chides notions of celebrity, then casts Susan Sarandon and Steve Martin in cameo appearances. It's even more ironic that, in a story of artistic indecision, Tucci can't quite settle on a solid center for his film. JOE GOULD'S SECRET is the sort of film you find fitfully interesting while never really finding it gripping. It found me lamenting the direction Tucci's behind-the-camera career has taken, increasingly wondering whether Campbell Scott might have been the real talent behind BIG NIGHT.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Tucci subjects: 5.
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