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THE DYING GAUL
Directed by: Craig Lucas.
Produced by: Campbell Scott & George VanBuskirk.
Written by: Craig Lucas, adapted from his play.
Director of Photography: Bobby Bukowski.
Edited by: Andy Keir.
Music by: Steve Reich.
Released by: Strand.
Country of Origin: USA. 105 min. Rated: R.
With: Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott & Patricia Clarkson.

Not unlike his play Prelude to a Kiss, Craig Lucas' directorial debut uses the device of identity swapping, though this time through a supposed cyberspace reincarnation. In each case, such spiritual switching of partners and souls create a foreboding sense of cosmic and karmic danger. Just when unsuccessful screenwriter Robert (Peter Saarsgard) thinks he knows himself, a lover, or those in a computer chat room, it turns out there are quirky and threatening forces beyond his control turning reality upside down. Whereas Prelude uses the fantastical (a newlywed wife switches bodies with an elderly man) in a disturbing but playful manner, The Dying Gaul makes the improbable more eerie and heavy-handed. The relationships in Prelude are clarified by the magical; in Dying, they become clouded by such elements.

Robert’s latest screenplay earns the attention of a major Hollywood executive, Jeffrey (Campbell Scott). The script, "The Dying Gaul," concerns Robert's relationship with his gay lover who recently died. When Robert is asked to rewrite the screenplay to target a more mainstream audience, he must choose between the integrity of his writing and the offer of fame and money. This choice and its consequence permeate the entire film, especially as it relates to the death of Robert's lover and the evolving intimacy between Robert, Jeffrey, and Jeffrey's wife, Elaine (Patricia Clarkson). With the haunting re-emergence of Robert's former lover, a collision course of past secrets, preternatural taunts and sexual indiscretions is set.

However, it is the audience that is most steered off course. A sparse script becomes an increasingly confusing concoction of disconnected genres: a mix of quasi-occult thriller, murder mystery, film noir, and spiritual allegory encased in a play-within-a-play. (Think Peter Weir meets Agatha Christie meets James Cain meets Charlie Kaufman.) The characters' journeys become lost and sacrificed in the maze of these multiple worlds. In addition, the fantastical elements that should enhance suspense and integrate the plot become elusive and mundane. Even with good acting all around, we unfortunately end up not caring about these people in the way that we should.

The direction might have succeeded if more pieces of the puzzle were provided, but we are kept too much in the dark and too much displaced. It is somewhat telling that when Jeffrey asks Robert what the title of his screenplay is about, the answer isn't particularly revealing. If Lucas' intent was to use spiritual mysticism to unveil greater depths of character or to enrich an unfolding thriller, he doesn't make the viewer feel particularly enlightened or terrified, and the meaning behind the story remains surreally unrealized. Max Rennix, actor & writer based in New York
November 4, 2005