THE TENANTS
Directed by: Danny Green.
Produced by: Chris Bongirne, Heidi Jo Markel, Lati Grobman, Holly Wiersma, Randall Emmett & George Furla.
Written by: David Diamond, based on the novel by Bernard Malamud
Director of Photography: David W. Dubois.
Edited by: Michael J. Duthie.
Music by: Leigh Gorman.
Released by: Millennium.
Language: with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: USA. 97 min. Not Rated.
With: Dylan McDermott, Snoop Dogg, Rose Byrne, Seymour Cassel, Niki J. Crawford & Aldis Hodge.

Can black and white writers truly appreciate each other’s experiences? Or are their stories so unique there’s no chance of reaching mutual understanding? In 1972 Brooklyn, Harry Lesser (Dylan McDermott), a Jewish novelist working on his third book, is the only remaining tenant in an abandoned building until he hears a typewriter clacking away in the distance. A struggling African-American writer trying to put his rage and frustration onto paper, Willie (the ubiquitous Snoop Dogg) has set up an office of sorts, working on a novel based on his life experiences – some real, some vividly imagined.

At first Lesser hates Willie’s interruptions (he agrees to safeguard Willie's typewriter), but he begins to enjoy the company, especially another writer’s. Willie, in turn, gets an uptight Lesser to relax and have a bit of fun, drinking and smoking weed. But then he asks Lesser to read his manuscript. Though Lesser’s critique seems constructive, Willie’s ensuing verbal attack is scathing; he’s viciously adamant that Lesser has no idea what it’s like to be black and therefore cannot understand his writing.

The situation boils over when Lesser makes the mistake of sleeping with a black woman at a party. In what is supposed to be the film’s shocking moment, Willie, surrounded by all of his friends, forces Lesser to play a game of I insult you, you insult me; the racial epitaphs fly out of Willie’s mouth, but Lesser – probably fearing for his life – refuses to play along and the scene just falls flat. The Tenants goes over the edge when Lesser professes his love for Willie’s white girlfriend Irene (Rose Byrne), an aspiring actress. It doesn’t seem plausible that Lesser would fall in love with a woman he just met; she’d immediately declare her love for him; or that he’d be crazy enough to try and steal Willie’s girl.

McDermott, in full beard and looking remarkably like Al Pacino in Serpico, tries to be convincing as Lesser, a slumped wordsmith (grandfather cardigan included) consumed only with the completion of his novel, but we don’t learn much else about him and this in turn makes us not really care. Snoop Dogg, meanwhile, does a fine job as Willie, as if he were an angry J.J. Evans from the 1970s sitcom Good Times. However, he and McDermott are unmatched in intensity. Perhaps that’s the point – angry black man vs. meek Jewish man – but it just doesn’t ring true.

When the Lesser-Willie-Irene triangle reaches its climax, Lesser’s violent rage looks out of place in this small film with its small sets. Whereas Crash brilliantly depicted society’s racial and class intolerances by thrusting our hidden prejudices smack into our faces, The Tenants tries to create some of the same tension and honesty, but doesn’t succeed in conveying the same rawness or truth. Tanya Chesterfield
February 3, 2006