SUNDANCE, ‘98. DAY IV. 1/18...
Okay, on Day 4, the sunny Sundance spirit finally kicked in with two films in the Dramatic Competition knocking me out: "Kip Koenig’s "How To Make The Cruelest Month," and Brad Anderson’s "Next Stop, Wonderland." The latter was deservedly picked up by -- surprise! -- Miramax, for deep pocket coin totaling $6.3 million. The bid from the Brothers Weinstein came in uncontested, and they muscled themselves a great film starring Hope Davis ("Daytrippers") and Alan Gelfant ("The Destiny Of Marty Fine"). To note: Those Park City debuts by Davis and Gelfant were logged when I rallied for them as a Slamdance juror (representing Film Threat) in ‘96.
Like Greg Mottola’s "Daytripper’s," Brad Anderson’s "Next Stop, Wonderland" is a character study of urban romantic life. The difference being that "Wonderland" is set in Boston (not NYC), and while Mottola has earned dubious stripes as "the next Woody Allen" with "Daytrippers," "Wonderland" qualifies as a big ticket romantic comedy furthering the restoration of At Large’s faith in the genre that Ron Bass had fully sapped with his truly awful "My Best Friend’s Wedding". Here’s the how and the why of it:
First, Hope Davis is one of the most amazing actresses in the business. She radiates behind a one-in-a-million face that has never mugged for the camera. Co-star, Alan Gelfant -- who came up the hard way from a comedy background in Boston, and time served behind many a pub stick -- finally bought a ticket to stardom with his weathered, leading man good looks coupled with naturalistic acting skills.
The "Wonderland" in the movie title refers to one of the last stops on Boston’s "Blue Line" subway route to Logan Airport. Even the color "blue" is a metaphor for the lost souls inhabiting the film; the fine cast of characters brushing shoulders with subway stops marking the frequent spots of missed opportunity and hopes dashed.
Davis plays a Harvard Med School drop-out who has (un)settled herself in as a nurse in what appears to be a triage unit in a metropolitan hospital. The film opens with her live-in boyfriend (the inimitably comic Phil Hoffman-as-mad activist) leaving her and her borderline clinical depression for good. Her mom is a model-rep, hell-bent on seeing her daughter find a mate, even if it means resorting to pimping her through the personal ads. Davis shrugs off the maternal subterfuge, by giving it a jaded whirl while letting randomly chosen words from Wordsworth be her guide each day. Remember the word "linoleum," and key into a back-to-back montages of the personal ad answering guys’ phone calls with her, followed by her actual meetings with these potential suitors. Those hilarious scenes are worth the price paid by Miramax alone. As co-writer of the screenplay (with the fine woman’s touch by Lyn Vos), these scenes work with deftly crafted dialogue in place, not the gratuitous use of, say, a song at a wedding party. The best part of the belly laugh sequences is the constant reality check cuts to Hope Davis’ mug as she plays the slightly bemused straight woman to it all.
"Wonderland" is soundtracked towards the perfect three martini denouement with Bossa Nova music, and director Anderson has paved his slick city streets with the fundamental goodness of man. If there’s a mantra-as-throughline for this masterpiece, it’s to be stolen from a translation of one of the film’s Brazilian songs: "Sadness has no end, happiness does." The tragedy of this remarkable comedy is the utter dissonance of modern day romance as translated through Anderson’s unflinching eyes through a viewfinder.
Leaving no precious story stone unturned, Anderson and all the creatives involved lovingly cut and paste many elements we may have seen before to a freshness few filmmakers have accomplished in the rom-com arena. Remarkably, in one of the parting moments, Anderson inserted a shot of two racing Greyhounds trying desperately to nuzzle through their muzzles before the race beings. That moment brought this reviewer to tears, hoping this movie would never end. I truly hope that a screening room full of otherwise jaded film critics applauding over the end-credits will point you towards the nearest "Wonderland" box office.
While "Wonderland" wins (thus far) in my movie sports book for overall sure-footed filmmaking, smart money bets Kip Koenig’s "How To Make The Cruelest Month" takes the prize for hippest film of the fest. The cast is perfectly peopled with relative newcomers like star, Clea Duvall (also at Sundance with "Niagara, Niagara" and "Life During War Time"), and Gabriel Mann ("Great Expectations"); veteran actors like Mary Kay Place ("The Big Chill"); erstwhile flavor of the months like Marianne Jean-Baptiste ("Secrets and Lies"); underrated leading men in cameos like Dennis Haysbert ("Love Field"), and indie stalwarts like James Duval ("Nowhere").
Inspired by the premise of man’s, or in this case, Clea Duvall’s character’s fundamental need to fall in love, first time director Koenig takes his characters in and (teasingly) almost out of a taut world of post-teen angst laden dysfunction to get even half way to that ideal. Koenig’s humor dances off his screenplay and onto the screen in an almost haphazard melange of straight-from-film-school styles that work.
"The Cruelest Month" is at times Dada-esque, Freudian in fragments, often existential, and one scene (featuring the star-coupling of Duvall and Mann making love in a VW bug) seems lifted from Bertrand Blier’s best work. When Mann begs Duvall to come back to him for the umpteenth time, she responds: "I’m not a fucking Labrador; nothing bothers you until it’s too late." Clocking in at 100 minutes, the constantly deep-witted dialogue makes every minute count. Count this gem as a Sundance audience favorite.
"Click" in here tomorrow for some cameo-style converstions with independent, press co-dependent Sundance personalities!