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Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility
S ense and S ensibility
Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant
Directed by Ang Lee
sian director Lee—of the 1994 surprise
gay-themed hit The Wedding Banquet
and last year’s Oscar-nominated foreign
film Eat Drink Man Woman—makes sensitive,
funny, acutely observed dramas. He has a talent for
grappling with the complexities of human vulner­
ability in romance and in family situations, which
inexplicably bring out the best and the worst in all
of us. Men and money are two subjects rarely
approached with sense or sensibility, but in this
A
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emotions. That said, this film is still chaste enough
to see with a relative of any age. Warm and witty,
this is by far the best of this year’s “holiday clas­
sics.”
R ichard
III
Sir Ian McKellen, Annette Bening,
Robert Downey Jr.
Directed by Richard Loncraine
w:
hile this is definitely a showcase piece
for our favorite openly gay Knight of
England (actually he may be the only
one), it’s too bad that his character—Richard III—
is a completely unsympathetic fascist who looks
like Hitler. I know I’m supposed to look beyond
that—perhaps at the almost fierce-diva-like por­
trayal of Queen Elizabeth by Annette Bening, or at
the clever post-modern adaptation of Shakespeare—
but I still found watching this film to be a mild
torture session.
classic tale by Jane Austen, adapted for the big
screen by Emma Thompson herself, we find some
timeless, universal, good advice.
Elinor (Thompson) and Marianne (played by
G aywatch
Kate Winslet of Heavenly Creatures), are good
girls—pretty, well-educated and devoted. How­
t is a well-documented fact that Asian men
ever, they have been left penniless after the death of
have a hard time finding good roles in Holly­
their father, as the old British system (the film is set
wood and on Broadway. Jason Scott Lee aside,
most male Asian actors are limited to playing either
in the early 1800s) dictates that all of their father’s
resources be left to their half-brother and his mi­
nerdy scientists or passive gay men. Unfortunately,
serly wife. Not only must
the holiday flick Fa­
The combination o f Austen,
the sisters console their
ther o f the Bride Part
grieving mother, but they Thompson and Lee has produced II brings the two ste­
have suddenly become
reotypes together with
a film that is both a thrill
“poor relations." Thus,
B.D. Wong (M Butter­
and a delight—in parts both
they must suffer subtle hu­
fly, All-American Girl)
sweet and wicked,
miliations as a part of te­
returning in his origi­
dious class conventions,
nal
nerd-fag role as
improper but never impolite.
and they must find love in
one-half of a team of
a society extremely conscious of upward mobility.
extremely camp caterers. Wong is the childlike and
The combination of Austen, Thompson and
gleeful side-kick to the silly, fey and strangely
Lee has produced a film that is both a thrill and a
accented Martin Short, who has denied in previous
delight—in parts both sweet and wicked, improper
interviews that the characters are meant to be gay
but never impolite. While we adore the lush art
at all. Simply unbearable.
direction of Merchant-Ivory, one can’t help but
compare their stuffy sense of repression and mar­
Reviews by Cathay Che, who is a regular
tyrdom with this film’s barely contained passions
contributor to POZ magazine and Time Out
that burst forth into satisfying wet and messy
I