SUNDAY (CFP) Starring: David Suchet, Lisa Harrow, Larry Pine, Jared Harris. Screenplay: Jonathan Nossiter and James Lasdun, from a story by Lasdun. Producers: Alix Madigan, Agios Katsikakis, Andrew Fierberg. Director: Jonathan Nossiter. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, sexual situations, nudity) Running Time: 90 minutes.
If Jonathan Nossiter wanted to make a documentary about the plight of New York's homeless, he should have just gone ahead and done it. At least he wouldn't have constricted one of the most compelling relationships of the year by subjugating it to a forced sense of social consciousness. Nossiter's feature debut, the Best Dramatic Film winner at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, ponders the nature of identity and the buried desires of lost souls through the story of a chance meeting one Sunday in Queens. While walking down the street, actress Madeleine Vesey (Lisa Harrow) hails a rumpled-looking man (David Suchet) she spies from a distance. She addresses him as respected film director Matthew Delacorta, but we know that "Matthew" woke up that morning in a homeless shelter, and that the men there know him as Oliver. Is Oliver really Matthew Delacorta? Is Madeleine really who she seems to be? Did she really attack her estranged husband (Larry Pine) with a pair of pruning shears?
Though SUNDAY asks plenty of questions without providing many answers, ambiguity isn't its problem. The real hitch is Nossiter's inability to recognize the strength of his central relationship. Both Suchet and Harrow give intense, emotionally rich performances as people taking a momentary escape from their bleak lives by clothing themselves in attractive fictions. Their relationship is complex and affecting, yet Nossiter seems to believe that he needs a broader canvas than the connection between two lonely people. That belief gives rise to frequent detours to peer into the way other homeless men are spending their Sunday, as well as unsatisfying encounters with Madeleine's husband?/ex-husband? and self-conscious cinematic trickery like unfocused point-of-view shots when Matthew/Oliver removes his glasses. As a love story, SUNDAY is often beautiful and haunting. As a film about a Serious Issue, it looks like a film-maker's attempt to create something to sermonize about in an acceptance speech.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 bleak Sundays: 6.
KICKED IN THE HEAD (October) Starring: Kevin Corrigan, Linda Fiorentino, Michael Rapaport, James Woods, Burt Young, Lili Taylor. Screenplay: Matthew Harrison and Kevin Corrigan. Producer: Barbara DeFina. Director: Matthew Harrison. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, sexual situations, drug use) Running Time: 89 minutes.
First, let's clarify all the things KICKED IN THE HEAD is _not_. It's not a whimsical, surreal urban odyssey like AFTER HOURS, despite the perplexing executive producer participation of Martin Scorsese. It's not a good-natured slacker comedy, despite the presence of a hyper-reflective, ambition-deficient protagonist. It's not a gritty-yet-pop-culture-savvy crime dramedy in the Tarantino mold, despite the plethora of shootouts and one inane discussion about the PLANET OF THE APES movies. And it's not worth a moment of your time.
Here's what KICKED IN THE HEAD _is_: a gruellingly unfunny 89 minutes spent following an annoying, unsympathetic young man named Redmond (Kevin Corrigan) on a "spiritual quest" through the Lower East Side, which apparently consists of 1) using plenty of beer and cocaine, 2) writing plenty of bad poetry and 3) spending plenty of time with people who are even more annoying and unsympathetic than himself. This is independent film-making at its most pointless and self-indulgent, mistaking profanity for profundity and incoherence for avant-garde. When a cast this talented (Linda Fiorentino, James Woods, Lili Taylor) stumbles through a script this disastrous, you can only assume that the title of KICKED IN THE HEAD refers to what happened to every one of them before signing on.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 head games: 1.
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