| The Sea Inside
I take issue with some of the stances in Alejandro Amenábar's
The Sea Inside. The films tackles euthanasia, a subject
that sparks multiple feelings about life, the Church, politics,
and morality. Personally, I see this as an issue where the
state should supersede when someone is acting contrary to
the intent of the person to be euthanized Other than that,
it should not something where the government should be involved.
In this country, we have a standard that works to a certain
degree: The Supreme Court says that someone in a "persistent
vegetative state" can have the plug pulled if there's
"clear and convincing evidence" of the person's
wishes. (Editor's Plug: For an account about euthanasia better
than either film out right now is lawyer KU Law Professor
William Colby's The Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy
Cruzan. Colby was the lawyer on the groundbreaking case
that stemmed from Southwest Missouri. It's a great, heartbreaking
account of a fascinating case. You can buy it at your local
book store or at Amazon) Most social films - particularly
social/political films that have come out this year - start
filming with a simplistic take on the issues they address,
replete with the opinions the filmmaker wants the audience
to have. Vera Drake wants you to side with a woman
who performs abortions just as likely to kill the mother as
the fetus. The Passion of the Christ presumes that
because Jesus had a horrific death, you should believe in
him and his teachings. Fahrenheit 9-11 presumes that
no other administration would have botched up national security,
although presidents of the past should share some blame. (Nice
work in Afghanistan, Papi Reagan or nice work distracting
Congress, Clinton!!) You get the point. But The Sea Inside
presents a challenging issue and does nothing to sugarcoat
the proceedings. The "hero" of the film is disabled,
but has full capacity of his mental resources. He's no vegetable;
he simply does not want to live anymore. There are people
who love him, don't want to see him die, and he treats them
like a doormat. The film ultimately believes that, in order
to die with dignity, the government has to approve. All of
this presents challenging predicaments for the audience. How
do you root for a guy who just wants to commit suicide and
who's a complete asshole anyway? Is euthanasia all right when
the person has full comprehension? The great thing about The
Sea Inside is that the answers to these questions do
not matter. The film's presentation of these issues is dense
and complex; with plenty of material for people to agree and
dissent.
The film recounts the last days of Ramon Sampedro (Javier
Bardem), a Spanish mechanic who became a quadriplegic after
a diving accident. After decades of being confined to a bed
in his brother's and sister-in-law's (Celso Bugallo and Mabel
Riverea) house, Ramon decides he wants to commit suicide and
"die with dignity". But, in order to commit suicide,
he's gotta have assistance. Ya know, he can't use his arms.
Anyone who assists him could be accused of murder, although
the film points out that no one in Spain has ever been prosecuted
for such a crime. The Sea Inside focuses on Ramon's
attempt to fight the court system, the Catholic Church, and
his own family in order to achieve this "internal peace."
But he is not alone in these efforts. The film focuses on
Ramon's relationship with two women during this battle. Julia
(Belen Rueda) is a lawyer prepping Ramon's argument before
the Court of Appeals. Suffering from an ailment, she finds
herself slowly creeping into a paralysis as well. Watching
Ramon make his choices influences her as well and they become
kindred spirits. Also on hand is Rosa (Lola Duenas), a neighbor
girl with ul motives: She approaches Ramon with the hope that
she can change his mind. Big mistake. He castigates her for
judging him in his own home and taking him on as a project
to mask her own insecurities. The next time she visits, Rosa
takes a less-harsh tack. She begins to fall in love with the
doomed Ramon. And, despite his temperament and general philosophy
on life, one can understand why. As portrayed by Bardem, Ramon
is a witty and passionate man who uses words to express feelings
that takes most people their whole bodies. He smiles and laughs
because "that's easier than crying." He so eloquently
argues his position for death that he almost becomes his own
worst evidence. In his debate with the wheelchair-bound Padre
Francisco (Jose Maria Pou), Ramon's selfishness comes blazing
through. At the same time, watching Ramon battle with the
memories of his youth fleshes out his psychological distress.
Since Bardem aged around twenty years for the role, he does
double duty as the young man who endured a physical death
at the bottom of a shallow sea. If the Church believes that
the body is only a vessel for the soul, then how does their
argument hold up with Ramon's predicament? It's messy, and
by the end the audience can't decide whether they should root
for Ramon's success, hope that a detractor intervenes, or
lament for the people he's leaving behind if he triumphs.
The Sea Inside does not pretend to make any of this
accessible. In fact, that's the film's great strength. The
issue of euthanasia is presented as a necessary end, but Ramon's
condition muddles the issue. A lot of films would treat a
character like Ramon with saintly gloves. His nasty behavior
is believable and humanizes him. The Sea Inside is
a probing, thought-provoking flick that expands upon, rather
than shrinking from, its harsh material. This is also the
subject secretly tackled by another Oscar-nominated film whose
name I dare not speak. But that film had to put an hour and
a half of sports cliches before it reaches the film's point.
And then, with little time left, the filmmakers simplify that
topic in order to neatly wrap up the film. With that other
movie's ending, I somewhat agreed with the conclusion. They
just failed to make me care about anything that happened before
it. The Sea Inside made me sweat and bleed for their
conclusion and, whether I agree or not, that made the difference.
Being Julia
Every Oscar season ushers in a film that aspires to be literary
and artistically dense - whether it actually accomplishes
either - that gets nomination(s) based on a superficial rationale
ranging from star wattage to fancy art direction. Last year
it was Girl with a Pearl Earring, a film whose main
legacy is a few technical nominations. Remember An Affair
of the Necklace? Probably not, but the costume designer
got a nod despite had the unenviable task of making Hillary
Swank look sleek and classic .Check out Gosford Park,
a non-apparel titled piece that gained multiple accolades
for Robert Altman in 2001 that rarely gets referenced now
outside of "Did they really nominate that?" conversations.
This year, the general public was left scratching their heads
by Annette Bening's Best Actress nomination. This has nothing
to do with Bening's titular performance in Istvan Szabo's
Being Julia. Due to its art-house status, most people
in the U.S. don't live within 50 miles of a theater playing
the film. For anyone who has seen it, they may consider re-locating
somewhere with fewer art houses. Being Julia has
one big idea that frames a premise stretched to the limit
by the film's running time. The characters are well-conceived
(most of them anyway) but are given preposterous decision-making
skills by the screenplay that lead them and the overall story
down a muddled and convoluted road of misguided motivation
and a drama-less resolution. But...those sets and costumes
are really pretty! And Bening is very ,very okay. Did she
deserve a nomination over Julie Delpy in Before Sunset?
Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Volume Two? Naomi Watts
in We Don't Live Here Anymore? Audrey Tautou in A
Very Long Engagement? No, but this is definitely friendlier
to award voters thanks to Bening's on-the-dot reading of Ronald
Harwood's literal script adapting W. Somerset Maugham's underwhelming
novella.
Julia Lambert (Bening) is the golden queen of London's West
End in 1938. She shrewdly chooses roles and maintains a dominance
over the production thanks to her estranged producer/husband
Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons). The film introduces Julia
as a raving prima donna. This is an overplayed role for sure,
but Bening seems to have her teeth fully dug into its skin.
Irons feeds off her radiance and she bounces gloriously off
his droll presence. The film begins to derail almost immediately
with the arrival of Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans), an American
with a strangely vague connection to the couple. He begins
to woo Julia but he is clearly a phony. Too "gee-golly"
in his presentation and too sneaky with his intent, the audience
waits in anticipation for Julia to ambush this creepy leech.
But instead, she falls for him and his "boyish charms."
Before you know it, she's buying him gifts and boinking his
brains out. How could a woman rise to such a successful level
in such a ruthless business be so blinded by such an obvious
dunce? Tom could have a 12-inch unit, but there's no clear
evidence of this. And sure enough, he starts going around
and making the sex with other women. Tom's main affection
is a young actress named Avice Crichton (Lucy Punch), whom
Tom promises a role in Julia's next play. Once again, Julia
agrees to this despite what her character's natural instinct
would suggest. Michael begins to carry on an affair with Avice
once rehearsals begin and slowly expands her part in the show.
But Julia lurches in the wings. She is being coached to seek
revenge by the ghost of Jimmy Langton (Michael Gambon), her
acting coach. From the climax to its ending, Being Julia
treats this dilemma as something Julia has planned all
along to get back at these people dead-set on ruining her
career. That would be dramatic and biting, if anything in
the story beforehand had corroborated such a conclusion. Of
course, there was not but that does not stop the film. Conclusions
like this normally work because there's purpose behind them.
Maybe the purpose came sometime after the credits.
Being Julia has one idea going through its pretty,
little head: For a performer, real life occurs on the stage.
With a script, everything has its place, can easily be predicted,
and makes sense to its inhabitants. The world away from the
stage is a made-up fantasy full of outrageous fortune and
brazen rage. This is not a bad idea; indeed Jimmy Langton's
coaching of Julia on how to make life more dramatic is the
best material in the film. But, director Szabo and screenwriter
Harwood don't know how to get from Point A to Point B without
ludicrous vehicles. First of all, why does Julia fall for
Tom? As played by Evans, there's nothing appealing about the
guy. Disingenuous at best and ardently irritating at worst,
Tom simply comes off as a boring and bland Chris O'Donnell.
Any credibility Bening gains by making Julia shrewd and calculating
at any other moment in the film is ruined by this development.
Secondly, why does she get so furious at Michael for cheating
on her with Avice? The marriage is clearly estranged and she's
been screwing Tom way before this. One could argue that she
had a subconscious response to her husband crying on with
a woman that he stole from the guy she's been carrying on
with, but that requires too much heavy lifting. That would
explain why Julia take most of her rage out on Avice, but
that explanation is a bit misogynistic.She shouldn't ruin
this girl's career and then let the guys who used both of
them get away unscathed. Shimes and I hypothesized that Bening
was offering self-criticism of her maneuvering of Warren Beatty
for personal and professional gain back in the early stages
of her career. That too requires quite a bit of heavy lifting.
And finally, why did Julia even consider starting an affair
with Lord Charles (Bruce Greenwood)? The film clearly telegraphed
this character's "relevant traits" from his introduction.
Once again, not shrewd and not calculated. Since these characters
act irrationally and unbelievably, Being Julia loses
all credibility and dramatic weight. These characters suffer
at the mercy of the script's conventions and nothing revelatory
or fresh happens as a result. Harwood is determined to make
the character's lives as crazy as possible to drive the point
home. The script is so faithful to this idea that the film
falls apart because of its implausibility. Harwood also mistakes
sophomoric sex humor for bawdy and naughty material. Men joke
about their "diddles" and women talk about men's
"diddles" and the audience is expected to squirm
with delight like Jon Lovitz on SNL's "Masterpiece
Theater" skit. Unless one counts the NPR-obsessed, Johnson
County-residing Desperate Housewife behind me in the auditorium,
nobody did. But if she got off on it that I say good for her.
The script certainly is not saved or aided by Szabo's directing.
This guy - an IMDb verified veteran of British cinema that
I've never caught- loves filming images in the most literal
ways possible. From Julia scraping off her make-up after a
fight with Tom to Julia's use of an stage swing in the film's
climax, Szabo has no interest in exploring any possible meaning
of an image other than what's on the surface. This certainly
fails to service the material or classic actors like Irons,
Gambon, Rosemary Harris, or Miriam Margoyles. But this does
help to further drown Evans and Punch already over their heads.
The only person who walks away with any shred of grace is
Bening, a veteran of period pieces (Bugsy) and a
survivor of misguided character studies (What Planet Are
You From?). Her skill with this larger-than-life character
matches her surroundings and her outfits. Bening didn't write
this junk and she does fine with the words and the motivation
provided. Who can blame her for taking such a show-boat role
that allows her to dominate every scene, even if the dominance
makes little to no sense. Her nomination still seems unfair
considering who was left off that list. It certainly is not
surprising. This is one of those safe, British imports that
wraps the audience with familiar characters and worn-in situations.
Things are seemingly made even more palpable by a bankable,
American actress and some dirty comedy bits. This is the same
thing we see every year at awards time and they will always
get nominated. Bening may not be a million dollar baby, but
she's good enough for the Academy and for me.
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