SMOKE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: An amiable multi-story film about the
acquaintances of a likable manager of a Brooklyn
smoke shop. Some of the goings-on are a little too
convenient with the story-teller polishing the
stories a little too much to be believable, but
perhaps that is the point of the film. SMOKE is a
film that may be more subtle than most viewers
realize. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4). This review
contains minor spoilers.
All is not what it seems with SMOKE. This is not a film that is about the people who know Auggie Wren, though one could be fooled into thinking that really was the subject of the film. Really this is a film about story-telling and what makes a good story. Like SHORT CUTS, SMOKE is a collection of short stories. It has no main plot but rather several subplots unfolding at the same time, mostly revolving around the wise and worldly Auggie Wren, operator of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a small smoke shop. Auggie runs into a broad cross-section of humanity while running the shop and he is a natural-born story-teller. One has the feeling, though the film never says it, that we are seeing not reality but Auggie's enhanced versions of the stories. Each story seems a little too much like a polished Auggie story to be taken literally. Only as we get toward the end of the film do we get an inkling about why that is and while it is open to interpretation, in my opinion it is probably that we are one more level removed from the characters than we are in most films. Auggie is telling us these stories in his own style. And we might expect that sort of subtle playfulness from a screenplay by Paul Auster, the author of the enigmatic novel THE MUSIC OF CHANCE, recently adapted to film. Auster is also the author of "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," which actually appears in the film, though there it is written by the character Paul Benjamin (a penname Auster has used). So apparently Auster has written himself into the story or perhaps he is just subtly playing with us again.
The film has a complex chain of simple stories. Auggie (played casually with open shirt by Harvey Keitel) has a favorite customer Paul (William Hurt), a once-good writer who has not been able to get his life together since the loss of his wife. His life is saved by troubled black teenager Rashid (Harold Perrineau, Jr.) who later sets out to find his (Rashid's) missing father Cyrus (Forest Whitaker). Meanwhile Auggie's ex-lover Ruby (Stockard Channing) shows up with demands on Auggie.
Auster has a hypnotic story telling style that makes the viewer want to just go along for the ride, though after the fact the stories seem more contrived than they originally seemed. There are certain symmetries in the stories, reminiscent of those that director Wayne Wang had in his previous film THE JOY LUCK CLUB. Certain plot elements show up repeatedly in the stories. Parent-child relationships seem to show up in many different forms. Stolen goods that end up going for a good purpose is another repeated plot element.
Adam Holender's camerawork manages to capture a certain charm to the streets of what could have been a tense area of New York. And Wang's style combines with Auster's style and Rachel Portman's music to make this a warm, if somewhat paradoxical film. I give it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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