Mixed flicks
Continued from Page 45
allowed and even encouraged, and any attempt
at a “plot” or “characters” is supposed to thinly
veil the erotic or sensationalistic “good parts.”
As it stands, however, Hard is a narrative
feature film. By that standard, it’s not even a
Showgirls-style, so-bad-it s-good, campy sort of
affair. It’s just plain bad.
—CM
he Cider House Rules, based on John Irv­
ing’s novel, is an intense story.
A doctor, played in the film by Michael
Caine, runs an orphanage in 1940s, World War
11-era Maine; Tobey Maguire is Homer, an
orphan whom the doctor treats as his own son.
The doctor’s hopes that his protégé will fol­
low in his footsteps, providing medical services
(including then-illegal professional abortions)
to the pregnant women who show up at the
orphanage, are dashed when the young man
decides to strike out and take a job on a far-off
farm. However, Homer’s worldly experiences
with life and love—including a doomed affair
...zany gift ideas at
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more honest feeling, Cider House Rules comes a
little too close to being a bore.
—CM
ansfield Park is a fine film for lovers of
Jane Austen costume dramas, but as is
customary with all things Austen, this
one is heavily hetero—despite being directed
by the gifted lesbian director Patricia Rozema.
She directed what I think is the most sensi­
tive, beautiful lesbian love story ever filmed,
When Night Is Falling. (If you’ve never seen it,
get thee to a video store and see for yourself.)
Mansfield Park does mark a big leap forward
in Rozema’s skills as a director and should
ensure her another feature film directing
opportunity. Also the screenwriter, Rozema
adapted Austen’s novel and amped up the
spunk factor of lead character Fanny Price with
passages from Austen’s letters and journals.
Though very much a film set in 1806, it does
include a few sly modernisms that add sparkle
and wit.
Fanny Price is portrayed as a strong-willed
woman, willing to defy her benefactor and
return to her stark and humble origins in order
to avoid marriage to a man she distrusts. Her
pluck and perseverance are ultimately rewarded
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VV illiam H. Macy is a lonely guy in Magnolia
and a crisis situation in which he feels morally
obligated to perform an abortion—only prepare
him to return to the orphanage upon the doc­
tor’s death and take his rightful place, wiser
and content with his vocation.
There are fine, thoughtful performances by
Caine and Maguire, though Charlize Theron’s
persona emits too much supermodel to be truly
believable as a farm girl. Still, it’s clear that a lot
of thought and care
went into her perfor­
mance. In fact, the
whole film suffers from
too much thought­
fulness, too much com­
posure, which seems at
odds with a story that
involves children being
abandoned, abortion,
incest and murder.
Director Lasse Hall-
strom (My Life as a Dog,
What s Eating Gilbert
Grape?) is too intent on
achieving a sort of
earnest placidity to let
his characters truly feel
their pain. For those
willing to meet Hal-
strom halfway, the film
could be an interesting
hit of storytelling. For
those who expect a little Tobey Maguire learns
as she makes a match true to her heart—albeit
with her first cousin!
Production costs were trimmed via a com­
petent cast that contains no big-name stars,
though Frances O’Connor as Fanny delivers a
suitably lively rendition of her character.
Filmed in England, the movie benefits from
lush art direction, appropriate to the upper-
class setting of the story, and Rozema manages
to include some
social commentary
on the source of
income that supports
the lifestyle at
Mansfield Park.
Some reviewers
have strained to
identify lesbian
overtones in the
film, but, alas, it
would take a huge
leap of the imagina­
tion to see much
femme-to-femme
innuendo in this
movie.
—Onana Green
NOVEMBER 9 DECEMBER 19,1999
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