TRESPASS

Written by Karl Gajdusak

Directed by Joel Schumacher

Starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage

It is mind boggling to me that A) films as thin and contrived as TRESPASS still get made and B) that any actors still working today would sign on to work with director, Joel Schumacher. Both TRESPASS stars, Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage, should have known better considering each of them has worked with Schumacher before in what are considered some of the worst titles on their resumes (BATMAN FOREVER for Kidman and 8MM for Cage). By starring in this home hostage thriller, Cage is reduced to sniveling cowardly on the floor and Kidman simply screams girlishly from a corner throughout. TRESPASS is an embarrassment for all involved, including those who see it. Heed my warning: Keep out of TRESPASS.

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RABBIT HOLE

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell

Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh

Becca: I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I'm having a good time.

There are times in our lives where we all find ourselves falling down a hole we didn’t see coming. We are just merrily making our way through the world we know when suddenly, and when we’re not necessarily paying attention, we find ourselves plummeting. While falling alone can be horrifying enough, tumbling down the same hole with your partner can be incredibly difficult and alienating. Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play parents who have recently lost their young son, Danny, to a car accident, in the delicate drama, RABBIT HOLE. Fortunately for them, director John Cameron Mitchell is there to catch them before they hit the ground.

Mitchell made a name for himself when he first wrote, directed and starred in the film adaptation of his own Off-Broadway show, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (click title for review). His exploration of the marginally sexual not only continued its prevalence in his second feature, SHORTBUS, but it would go places most would never dare. In his third and decidedly most accessible work to date, RABBIT HOLE, Mitchell almost abandons sexuality entirely and turns his focus on grief and loss. I use the word, “accessible” loosely, as there is nothing easy about going down this particular hole. David Lindsay-Abaire’s adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, looks at a couple suffering the unbearable loss of their only child, a story that we have seen a number of times before, and makes it feel like the individual experience it has to be.

Joining Kidman and Eckhart along their journey towards catharsis feels like a privilege, like we don’t really have the right to be there. Each of their experiences is so separate from the other’s, but you can always feel that they are fighting somewhere deep underneath their own hardship to find their way back to each other. Eckhart is strong as a husband who is struggling with doing everything he can not to forget but Kidman is just plain unforgettable. She is doing everything she can to heal, including reaching out to the young boy who was driving the car that killed her son, but she can’t tell if anything is actually working. After all, what level of sadness is needed to let go and see the world the way it once was? That’s the thing about rabbit holes though, both in metaphoric terms and in regards to this film, you’re not the same for having gone down them.

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NINE

Written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella
Directed by Rob Marshall
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Fergie and Sophia Loren


Journalist: What I am asking, Maestro, is have you run out of things to say?

I don’t think NINE could look better on paper if it tried. You’ve got Michael Tolkin, the author of “The Player”, and the late, great Anthony Minghella translating a Broadway classic to the screen, that has even deeper roots as the show itself was based of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2. You’ve got Rob Marshall in the director’s chair. This is the man who reinvigorated the movie musical right when it was on the very brink of extinction with the Oscar-winning, CHICAGO, after all. You’ve got a cast of women unlike anything I’ve seen on film before – Marion Cotillard! Penelope Cruz! Nicole Kidman! Judi Dench! Kate Hudson! Fergie! Sophie Loren, for Pete’s sake! And who do you have at the center of all these ladies? Why none other than the genius of the day, Daniel Day-Lewis. How then could all of the excitement that this incredible pedigree inspires be completely missing from the final cut?


The problem might be the show itself. Day-Lewis is Guido Contini, Italy’s most exciting internationally recognized director. Well, he used to be. As of late, his films haven’t been connecting with audiences like they used to. We meet him amidst a flurry of press for his latest project and we quickly realize that he’s got no movie to make. Before long, we are introduced to his wife (Cotillard), his mistress (Cruz), his mother (Loren), his muse (Kidman) and his creative rock (Dench). It isn’t long after that that you realize juggling all these women in his life and ultimately trying t control them like he does his films is making it impossible for him to breathe. The women aren’t smothering him though. He is doing that all to himself by failing to see them all as actual people instead of supporting players in his own life. An unsympathetic egomaniac does not rally an audience.


It is even more troubling to me though that Marshall’s direction never allows for these lovely ladies to elevate past supporting players either. It’s ironic really to watch a movie about a blocked director directed without the inspiration to make it as great as it so clearly could be. Each woman in the cast gets to sing their song one by one and each one sings of how their lives have been changed by Contini, be that good or bad. As we never get to see these characters for who they are but rather just through the eyes of Contini himself, the hurt they sing about it isn’t connected to anything real. That said, neither are the musical numbers themselves. They all look and sound fantastic and, not to mislead, are pretty enjoyable too. They just keep coming in such an expected fashion that they lack the spontaneity necessary to make them truly pop.


Like CHICAGO, Marshall wants the musical numbers to feel like a surreal layer to the characters’ live. They seem to be happening in their minds but you never feel like you’ve actually been in anyone’s head. Anyone, that is, except for Contini. Every song and every scene is about him and while Day-Lewis does a perfectly fine job losing his way, he never quite finds it either. Although history is given to suggest where his troubles may have started, his woes never amount past the point of self-indulgence and subsequently NINE never becomes the masterpiece it should have. Instead, this fascinating dissection of one man’s mind never gets deep enough to entertain past the surface.

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