dir. Luke Greenfield
Opens Fri April 9.
This uncredited remake of Risky Business is about a young man (Emile Hirsch) who dreams of getting into a topnotch school. His academic plans are disrupted when he falls in love with the sexy girl next door (Elisha Cuthbert). In this update of the Paul Brickman classic, the love interest is changed from a hooker to a porn star, Guido the killer pimp becomes Kelly the dangerous porn producer, and the business lessons learned from running a brothel become a story about the financial rewards of the porn industry.
Stranger Personals
Risky Business was made during the early years of the Reagan presidency, and it reflects the era's pro-business sentiment in its use of sex (and women) as a commodity. The Girl Next Door is the product of a similar political landscape, and even though the whore with the heart of gold is still sweet, the movie is a whole lot uglier. It's too bad because it starts out so charming, but when money gets involved it all goes to hell--the plot becomes clichéd, the plot twists become implausible, and the message about money being more important than moral fiber is unsavory. Then again, the point of the movie is the use of women as merchandise. In that respect, though Cuthbert does not have any nude scenes, she does remain as sexy in the film as she is in the poster, so in that regard (and only that regard) the movie is a success. ANDY SPLETZER
Bon Voyage
dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Opens Fri April 9.
Bon Voyage has a big theme (Germany's invasion of France), big actors (in terms of reputation), and big emotions (a young man's eternal love for a famous but shallow movie actress). The speed of the film's narrative is always high, and the characters are kept in constant motion, rarely stopping to rest and look at the big world around them. For example, there is one scene where the main character, a writer named Frédéric (Grégori Derangére), looks out of a rushing train's window and sees the sun rising along the countryside. The moment, which recalls another wonderful moment, from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, lasts only for three or four seconds, and the writer is thrown back into the heart of the action.
Directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Bon Voyage begins with a man being shot to death by his lover, a movie actress called Viviane Denvers (Isabelle Adjani). Viviane phones her childhood sweetheart, Frédéric (the writer), and begs him to dispose of the body. Lost in a fog of love, Frédéric submits to the star's irrational will and attempts to dump the dead lover into a nearby river. The plan implodes, and the writer is arrested and sentenced for the murder. While in prison, Germany invades France, and during the confusion of the crisis, the writer escapes and pursues the actress, who, with help from her present lover, a cabinet minister (Gérard Depardieu), is fleeing Paris. Also fleeing Paris is a scientist with the formula of and basic components for a weapon of mass destruction. Everyone ends up in a gorgeous hotel in Bordeaux. Spies are everywhere, and the scientist's young assistant, Virginie Ledoyen, falls in love with the writer who is in love with the impossible movie star.
If this were an American movie, it would have been described as intelligent and even profound; but as a French movie, it is big, dumb, and lots of fun. CHARLES MUDEDE
Ella Enchanted
dir. Tommy O'Haver
Opens Fri April 9.
Ella Enchanted stars saucer-eyed Anne Hathaway as a young woman cursed with total obedience. A quasi-feminist fairy tale vaguely inspired by the story of Cinderella (Ella--get it?), the film follows its heroine's quest to remove the curse, which naturally results in the obligatory romance with the hunky Prince Charmont. As family fluff with a girl-power message, Ella actually presents a more sophisticated argument than a "serious" movie like, say, Whale Rider. By making the restrictions placed on the heroine internal (sort of) rather than external (such as conservo-fascist parents and chauvinistic traditions), the movie inches toward a subject that has not really been dealt with in mainstream film: the subservience this society attempts to program into its women. To the film's credit, it keeps its woman on top all the way through, even at the expense of logic and narrative coherence.
Your typical land-of-enchantment movie in most respects, Ella's comic relief comes mostly in the form of Flintstones-style anachronisms; that is, pop-culture references with a medieval coating. It's skillfully made, reasonably amusing, and contains a few genuinely interesting cinematic ideas. Unfortunately, director O'Haver and company feel the need to repeatedly remind the audience just how goddamn fun it all is. Virtually intoxicated by the magical-ness of the proceedings, the film is filled with knowing winks and a strained joviality that gets tiring fast. ADAM HART
The United States of Leland
dir. Matthew Ryan Hoge
Opens Fri April 9.
The United States of Leland is yet another painfully earnest attempt to bring the secret crimes of white-collar America to light. Focusing on the aftershocks of a seemingly senseless teenage murder, and told in a series of distracting flashbacks and voiceovers, the film attempts to simultaneously take a telescopic and microscopic view of its subject matter, resulting in a self- important mishmash of good intentions and stale executions.
Writer/director Matthew Ryan Hoge clearly has ambition to burn, but his attempt to explore every conceivable side of the convoluted story leads to a domino effect of narrative misjudgments and questionable moral stances. Is using the death of an autistic boy as the equivalent of American Beauty's plastic bag really a good idea? Did Hoge intend for the overwhelming majority of the guilt to be placed squarely on his oblivious female characters? Isn't it more than a little troubling that the blame for the crime is eventually relegated to practically everyone in the neighborhood, except for the one who actually did the deed?
The overqualified cast, including Don Cheadle and Jena Malone, does what it can, but is ultimately stymied by the limitations of the script. As he showed in The Believer, Ryan Gosling has some ferocious chops, but he can't do much with the Holy Fool conceit of his central character, who is repeatedly called upon to gaze wistfully into the distance while spouting Deep Thoughts. Only Kevin Spacey really registers--in his few brief scenes as a Maileresque novelist, with welcome flickers of his old magnificent bastardry--before being quickly cast back to the sidelines. ANDREW WRIGHT
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