All posts by One Guys Opinion

Dr. Frank Swietek is Associate Professor of History at the University of Dallas, where he is regarded as a particularly tough grader. He has been the film critic of the University News since 1988, and has discussed movies on air at KRLD-AM (Dallas) and KOMO-AM (Seattle). He is also the Founding President of the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics' Association, a group of print and broadcast journalists covering film in the Metroplex area, and was a charter member of the Society of Texas Film Critics. Dr. Swietek is a member of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS). He was instrumental in the creation of the Lone Star Awards, which, through the efforts of the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Film Commission, give recognition annually to the best feature films and television programs produced in Texas.
Interviews

DROWNING MONA

C+

One of the most notable things about Verplanck, the rather
seedy little burg in upstate New York where Nick Gomez’s black
comedy is set, is that everybody drives a Yugo (the reason,
we’re told, is that it was once chosen as a test site for the
car). This proves a fairly apt metaphor for the entire flick,
which–like that clunky vehicle–is a pretty ramshackle affair,
moving along rather slowly and clumsily. Still, it gets where
it’s going and delivers some dark humor in the process, even
if it treats its set of oddball characters with more haughty
condescension than good-natured affection.

“Drowning Mona” is a comic murder mystery peopled by individuals
of the grossly white-trash variety. The piece is set in motion
when the town harridan, Mona (Bette Midler at her most shrewish),
drives over a cliff and perishes. The town’s amiable police
chief (Danny DeVito), a Broadway show-tune fan (although that’s
a character trait that’s quickly dropped), suspects foul play.
The problem is that there are too many suspects: Mona’s battered
husband (Willim Fichtner) and one-handed, boobish son (Marcus
Thomas), along with the over-the-hill waitress they both have
eyes for (Jamie Lee Curtis); the son’s excessively timid
partner in a landscaping business (Casey Affleck) and his live-
in fiance (Neve Campbell), who also happens to be the chief’s
daughter; and assorted other townspeople. As the plot thickens,
or sickens (depending on your point of view), we’re also
introduced to a sex-obsessed undertaker (Will Ferrell), a
female mechanic with a masculine mien (Kathleen Wilhoite), an
alcoholic priest (Raymond O’Connor), a local layabout (Tracey
Walter), a bartender who’s protective of his brother (Mark
Pellegrino), and the chief’s trio of bumbling Keystone Cops
(Peter Dobson, Paul Ben-Victor and Paul Schultze). Along the
way to an extremely contorted, and rather silly, denouement,
the various characters careen about their business, occasionally
offering “Rashomon”-like recollections of past incidents
involving Mona but mostly abusing or misunderstanding one
another in comically complicated ways.

Clearly writer Peter Steinfeld and director Gomez were aiming
for a sort of whacked-out, kaleidoscopic effect, akin to what
was achieved in 1986’s “Ruthless People” (which also featured
Midler and DeVito) or–on a much more elevated level–in
“Fargo.” Their efforts are hindered, however, by the sometimes
chaotic nature of the writing, which never makes all the strands
hang together, and a desultory quality to the direction, which
is sometimes assured and nimble but more often a trifle flaccid.

The picture does, however, allow you to watch some fine
performers enjoying themselves slumming, as it were. Midler
shrieks abrasively, while DeVito is nicely laid-back. Even
better are Affleck, whose nerdiness is quite appealing, and
Campbell, who seems to like getting away from her goody-two-
shoes image. Curtis can’t quite conceal her glamor, but
Fichtner is appropriately slimy, and Dobson earns some chuckles
as a handsomer version of Barney Fife. The one cast member,
in fact, who never really convinces is Thomas, whose scraggly
obtuseness is too obviously calculated to work.

“Drowning Mona” is a movie which, as a whole, never quite equals
the sum of its parts, but in its shambling, goofily nasty way
it manages to generate some solid laughs as it lurches to a
close. You might be a tad ashamed to be chortling at some of
the stuff happening onscreen, but you probably won’t be able to
stop yourself.

Uncategorized

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

Grade: B-

A feel-good film about the aftermath of the war in Bosnia might
seem an impossible task, but that’s roughly what novice writer-
director Jasmin Dizdar has attempted in her feature debut.
Actually “Beautiful People” is a complex, multi-layered black
comedy-drama which, through a variety of intercutting narratives,
portrays the spillover of Balkan ethnic hatreds into the
London of 1993 by dramatizing the experiences of immigrants
trying, after escaping the horrors of their native land, to
become a part of England’s broadly multicultural population
mix. In the process the Bosnians must learn to suppress the
antagonisms which have driven their lives for so long, while
the British with whom they come into contact find themselves
changed by the experience. By the end, although undercurrents
of the old pains remain, the process of assimilation has taken
hold, and the future looks promising, if imperfect; as one
character observes rather too obviously, if one can find even
brief moments of joy amidst the catastrophe, life can be
beautiful.

One has to admire the ambition of Diznar’s concept, which
contains elements of broad farce (especially in the sequences
involving a Serb and a Croat who batter one another into a
hospital ward, where they’re housed with a Welsh terrorist who’s
exploded a bomb in his own face–a reminder that ethnic strife
is evident everywhere), drawing-room comedy (in the portrayal
of the home life of a British MP whose daughter becomes
romantically attached to a Yugoslavian refugee), whimsically
sentimental humor (in a narrative about a young hooligan who,
mistakenly transported into the Balkan war zone, is transformed
by the experience and becomes a hero to his middle-class
parents), domestic drama (in the story of a doctor whose wife
has just left them and who gives shelter to a newly-arrived
Bosnian couple) and political denunciation of western failure
to stop the conflict (through an episode regarding a BBC
journalist wounded in the Balkan fighting who is tormented by
what he’d seen there). The segments are diverse in terms of
both narrative and tone, but they’re all shot through with
streaks of mordant humor and moments of pungent pain that give
them considerable, if sporadic, power.

Still, it must be admitted that, for all the virtues of its
concept, its execution is often flawed. For one thing, there
are simply too many characters to allow for them to be
presented in anything but the most cursory, perfunctory fashion;
over the course of the first hour, a viewer might wish for a
scorecard to consult about who’s who, and even after the
identification becomes less difficult, most of the figures
continue to be portrayed so sketchily that they seem like
pieces on a cinematic chessboard rather than full, vibrant
human beings. Nor are all the narratives of equal interest;
that concerning the young layabout Griffin (Danny Nussbaum)
whose accidental trip to Bosnia nullifies his own prejudices
and promises to change his life is probably the most
immediately appealing (and surely the funniest).

But even in that strand of the plot, the speed and ease in the
transformation of the characters come across as not merely
implausible but somehow troubling. In the final analysis
Diznar’s picture seems to underplay the lasting impact that
the horrors of Bosnia must necessarily have on its victims;
the fact that the BBC journalist is apparently cured of what
one doctor calls the “Bosnia syndrome” of identifying with the
people involved in the conflict by the simple expedient of
hypnotism is characteristic here. And the mostly generous (if
sometimes grudging) acceptance by the English of the Yugoslav
immigrants appears too simple as well; in this connection the
abrupt and sentimental abandonment by two of Griffin’s pals of
their ugly xenophobia toward the picture’s close, while
eliciting smiles of contentment from the audience, is forced
and dramatically false.

“Beautiful People” is thus a film of brilliant isolated
moments, but its segmented approach ultimately dilutes its
impact, and the hopefulness of its final message seems, in
view of its subject, oddly self-congratulatory.