FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
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
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