Michael Winterbottom, the latest press-ordained savior of British cinema, seems to agree. His career so far can be considered a self-conscious attempt to establish for himself a tradition of his own, like that of a classic Hollywood auteur. Superficially he's succeeded, working with a dizzyingly diverse range of genres (from lesbian serial killers on the road to romance cut short by fatal illness to a staid, over-respectful literary adaptation), but uniting them all with a common viewpoint. The only downside has been that Winterbottom's viewpoint is irredeemably false and hollow, leaving you with nothing but stock situations, trite manipulation, and flashy camera work. His latest, Wonderland, displays all his weaknesses, but also (in its first half at least) some unexpected strengths that inspire hope for his future.
Revolving around the kind of free-floating ensemble that's become popular of late--one whose relationships, hidden at first, gradually emerge in the course of the film--Wonderland attempts to get the pulse of modern London from the various comings and goings of three sisters. Single mom Debbie (Shirley Henderson) is juggling parenting duties with her dating life; Molly (Molly Parker) is due to deliver her and husband Eddie's first child; and shy, insecure Nadia (Gina McKee) is having mostly hard luck with the dates she meets through the personals.
Already your teeth might grit at the clumsy schematization of the trio, each less a person than Stages in the Life of Woman. But there's a genuine pleasure in the way Winterbottom's camera, accompanied by Michael Nyman's touching score, roams the city streets at night, enraptured equally by the neon and the odd, hopeful glances of strangers seen in passing. There's a lovely sense of possibility in these moments; everyone appears to be waiting for someone, whether they know it or not, and when this or that casually observed bystander suddenly steps out of the background and becomes a character in his or her own right, it feels less a surprise than a well-earned reward, and just for a moment, it looks like Winterbottom might have finally pulled one off. Then it all goes to hell.
Once the players are all sorted out, Winterbottom and screenwriter Laurence Coriat simply run out of steam. Everything that had been fresh and inspired gets flattened out by increasingly forced developments. Spontaneity evaporates, unlikely chance meetings and simplistic solutions come to dominate, and by the time Molly gets raced to the delivery room, you're past caring about anyone. Winterbottom comes close to a good movie here, but in the end he timidly returns to England's dominant film tradition: the "quiet, little film" whose insights consist of putting the best face on a bad situation.
A whole other movie history lies behind another British import, Nigel Cole's deeply unfunny dope comedy, Saving Grace. Brenda Blethyn stars as a sheltered, small-town woman, newly widowed and destitute, who with the aid of her gardener Craig Ferguson turns to growing marijuana as a source of income. If you've seen a Cheech and Chong film, you've seen every gag here, however gussied-up they are by the accents and seaside photography: absentminded cops oblivious to the cloud of smoke around an acquaintance's head; balding, potbellied hippies lighting up to the strains of a sitar; two sweet old ladies, inadvertently stoned and gorging themselves on candy bars. If these situations sound remotely amusing to you, you might as well go. This film won the Audience Award at Sundance; no surprise, as it drags out every lame crowd-pleaser in the book. This kind of tradition we don't need.
