THE LAST SEDUCTION
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, J. T. Walsh. Screenplay: Steve Barancik. Director: John Dahl.
John Dahl has to be considered one of the most unlikely success stories of recent years. Last year, his made-for-cable film RED ROCK WEST found a second life in a few art houses around the country, and became something of a cult hit. THE LAST SEDUCTION also made its first appearance on cable earlier this year, but from the looks of things, Dahl will be able to make a few films directly for the big screen if he so chooses. Film noir has been a hot genre lately, and few directors with more established reputations are making them better than John Dahl. THE LAST SEDUCTION is a wonderfully nasty piece of work, sparked by Linda Fiorentino's bad-to-the-bone lead performance.
Fiorentino plays Bridget Gregory, a New York City telemarketing manager with ambition and attitude. After her husband Clay (Bill Pullman), a shady doctor, scores $100,000 selling pharmaceutical cocaine to pay off a loan shark, Bridget takes the money and runs. She ends up in Beston, an upstate town too small for her big plans, but she's forced to stay put to avoid being found by Clay. In Beston Bridget hooks up with Mike Swale (Peter Berg), an earnest young fellow who falls hard for her. With Mike in the palm of her hand, and Clay and his detectives hot on her trail, Bridget sets in motion a convoluted plan manipulating everyone and everything in her way.
The critical error many recent film noir attempts have made (the abysmal COLOR OF NIGHT comes most quickly to mind) is that they operate on the premise that all you need are minimalist lighting and a few plot twists to maintain audience interest. Characters become props holding up a plot, rather than the elements that drive the plot. Dahl and screenwriter Steve Barancik do not make that error. Everything revolves around the interactions between Bridget, Clay and Mike, and all three are well-constructed characters. Bill Pullman, who has been making a career out of playing the spurned nice guy (SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, MALICE) takes on the role of spurned not-so-nice-guy Clay and attacks it with gusto. His seething disgust at having underestimated Bridget once becomes a fierce determination to get back at her, but he is completely unprepared for the lengths to which she'll go. Peter Berg is excellent as the big-hearted small-town boy who longs to break free to the big time, and latches on to his love for Bridget as his best chance to motivate himself after a disastrous first attempt to leave Beston. In order for THE LAST SEDUCTION to work to the fullest, Berg has to convince us that there's a reason besides simple naivete that he stays with Bridget, and he makes Mike's need genuine.
However, everyone else is just renting screen time from Linda Fiorentino; she owns the show. Her Bridget is a creature of pure ego and ambition, and as such there is always the chance that she might seem beyone accepting as a real person. Occasionally, that seems to be the case. Because Barancik deliberately avoids providing us with any easy motivation for Bridget's actions (a troubled childhood, for example), her calculation becomes a bit difficult to swallow in one gulp. But Fiorentino is so alive in this part that she makes Bridget real, and her glee is infectuous. She is at her best when using stereotypical assumptions about women to her advantage, such as a scene where she brings cookies out to the detective who is keeping an eye on her so that she can plant nails under his tires, or one where she convinces Mike that she loves him by plainting a note showing his name in a little heart for him to find. Bridget's most valuable asset is that nobody quite believes that she can be as amoral as she seems, and consequently she is able to catch everyone at their most vulnerable.
THE LAST SEDUCTION's plot does have the requisite twists, turns and surprises, but none of them are particularly jaw-dropping. Dahl and Barancik are more concerned with tone and character, and deliver in both categories. But if there is one aspect of the story which is truly impressive, it is what *doesn't* happen. The formulaic qualities of so many movies have conditioned us to expect a comeuppance for characters like Bridget at a specific plot point; however, at crucial moments when it seems that she's made a critical mistake, she's still one step ahead. Clockwork plots like THE LAST SEDUCTION can sometimes seem too contrived for their own good, and some viewere might find it simply too cold. Many others will find Fiorentino and THE LAST SEDUCTION the perfect antidote to the recent glut of stylish but vacuous blockbusters.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 seductions: 8.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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