JUPITER'S WIFE
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1995 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 6.8
Shown at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema Running Length: 1:18 MPAA Classification: Not Rated (Profanity, mature themes) Director: Michel Negroponte Producers: Michel Negroponte, Doug Block, and Jane Weiner Screenwriters: Michel Negroponte and Gabriel Morgan Cinematography: Michel Negroponte Distribution unknown
JUPITER'S WIFE is a documentary that often reminds the viewer of a real-life detective story. This isn't a search for a criminal, however; it's an attempt to sift through one woman's personal mythology to uncover the truth -- who she once was and what happened to make her the person she is today. Some of the things discovered by film maker Michel Negroponte are truly amazing, and give us cause to ponder the strange workings of fate. Of all the people to randomly pick for a documentary, the director chose one with tiny snippets of her life already preserved for posterity.
One day several years ago, Negroponte ventured into New York's Central Park to do some preliminary photography for a documentary on the history of the park. One of the people he interviewed was Maggie, a homeless woman who claimed to be the daughter of actor Robert Ryan and the wife of the Roman god Jupiter. Negroponte was so intrigued by Maggie that he decided to build his film around her. JUPITER'S WIFE became a portrait of this fascinating woman and a chronicle of the director's efforts to unearth her elusive, tantilizing past.
As a character study, JUPITER'S WIFE is no more or less engrossing than dozens of similar films. It's Negroponte's detective work that makes the movie worth sitting through. Generally, it's easy to be bored by this sort of motion picture, but not in this case. The film maker's enthusiasm overcomes technical deficiencies and an amateurish style (JUPITER'S WIFE was shot on video for a budget of about $500). For emotional impact or sheer intellectual appeal, this movie doesn't approach a HOOP DREAMS or BROTHER'S KEEPER, but its depiction of Maggie makes for worthwhile viewing.
- James Berardinelli (jberardinell@delphi.com)
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