Because writing this is more fun than writing a "statement of current research"--yick! Anyway, Tracy and I saw this today as part of our day o' fun. It's not really a "fun" movie, but it is quite good. More of a character study than the thriller the previews make it out to be. And a much simpler plot than the previews or any of the articles I read intimated. Clooney is fantastic, as usual, and I could handle Tilda Swinton even though she scares me a little and I want to know if she was wearing padding around her middle. And she delivered my favorite line of the whole movie perfectly: "You don't want my money?" Anyway, Clayton (Clooney) is a "fixer" for a law firm--that is just the job it sounds like with all of the moral ambiguities thrown in--and he's good at his job. He also has a young son from a failed marriage, a gambling problem, and a failed bar venture. He's not a happy man and I think Clooney did a good job of showing us just how unhappy he is, just in his face and with his eyes. Swinton is Karen Crowder, a newly-minted chief counsel for uNorth, a firm that makes a pesticide that apparently kills people. Clayton's firm represents uNorth in a lawsuit filed by farmers who have been harmed by the pesticide. Another lawyer, Tom Wilkinson's Arthur Edens, goes a bit batty and threatens to blow the whole thing out of the water. Information slowly leaks out and Clayton has to navigate the moral ambiguities of his job and well as its effects on the people he loves and the world at large.
The movie begins en medias res but quickly goes back to the beginning to tell the story and I think that works in this case. You get just enough information to get to know the character and then the replay of those events once the flashback catches up is well done with enough of the original scenes interspersed with new information to move it along pretty seamlessly. And there are some interesting camera angles and shots that help the feel of the movie. I would have liked the sub-plot of the son's fantasy book/card game to have gone somewhere and to have seen the outcome of Clayton's final actions in terms of his firm. And the very end is good but a bit awkward for the viewer (which is fine, probably a bit purposeful even). Overall, I liked it a lot.
2 comments:
That's a good point about the fantasy card thing. You saying that made me think about how the whole Tom Wilkinson plot was a literalization of how fantasy bleeds into reality. Some of what he was saying/doing was bat-shit crazy, but he was also most assuredly *not* bat-shit crazy. Clooney's "I am Shiva" line was a nice nod to that, but you're right, it would have been good to have a direct reference to the book itself.
*Spoiler Alert*
Did the end remind you of "The Dead" at all? The main character has an epiphany, but that epiphany is ironically that his life is meaningless? That whole "I'm the guy you buy, not the guy you kill" thing. I thought the pathos in that line was pretty moving.
I'd have to re-read "The Dead" to say anything specifically about that one. But, Joyce in general (or at least Dubliners) relies on that sort of epiphany with little to no payoff except knowing you're trapped and there is no way out (kind of like Foucault)--normally by religion or country. I guess there is some religious imagery isn’t there? -- the trinity of the horses, the bread and wine, the "redemption," a serious savior complex, Shiva mentioned twice, etc. That and fantasy novels normally have some sort of Christian mythology debt to pay . . . . If only I were better with the whole Bible thing, we could probably have some sort of Christian/Joycean reading of the movie.
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