Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
Emotional and Physical Destruction :
Yes, War of the Worlds
7-6-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Joan Allen is having a great year at the movies. First came her transcendent performance in the recent Upside of
Anger and now she’s pulled off the amazing feat of making iambic pentameter a/k/a rhyming dialogue
sound…normal. Next up: Joan Allen performing the phone book. Okay, though Allen isn’t likely to do that yet she
really does make writer-director Sally Potter’s gimmicky conceit in Yes, her new picture, seem perfectly natural.
After awhile you stop thinking about the Dr. Seuss phrases you’d like to toss back at the characters and just let
Allen and her marvelous supporting cast, Simon Abkarian, the always dreamy Sam Neill and Shirley Henderson get
on with it.
Henderson, who played the baby voiced best friend of Renée Zellweger in both the Bridget Jones movies and
Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter pictures addresses the camera directly at the outset of Yes. She’s the
housekeeper for the affluent couple played by Allen and Neill and as she cleans she begins monologuing about how
hard it is to really get the dirt out of things. Things that appear neat and tidy really aren’t, she says, and it’s
apparent that we’re in for a lot of philosophizing. Periodically throughout the movie Henderson returns to
speechify and comment on the action, a sort of one woman Greek Chorus. And this being a treatise on class and
cultural differences, there’s a lot to comment on.
Allen plays an American-Irish scientist living in London whose marriage to Neill has become a loveless matter of
convenience. Quite by accident she meets a Lebanese expatriate (Abkarian) who was trained as a surgeon but
works as a chef. On impulse she hands him her all important cell number and he, also on impulse, gives her a ring
at just the right moment. An affair begins and spirals into directions that neither planned on. Both characters,
drawn together against their will, spend lots of time analyzing and reflecting on the differences between each
other. With all the divisions between the two (including the usual male and female generalizations) and the various
subplots that crop up, somehow the affair holds together. Inexplicably, each has found his physical and emotional
mate.
Gay audiences will be most familiar with Potter’s 1992 film version of Virginia Woolf’s gender bending novel
Orlando. Potter cast Tilda Swinton in the title role of the nobleman who eventually switches from male to female
and stays young forever at the urging of Queen Elizabeth. Potter, adding more twists to the gender
transformations, cast the late gay activist Quentin Crisp in that role and singer Jimmy Somerville as a singing
Angel (in falsetto, natch). The film, with its breathtaking cinematography, sets and costumes made a bit of a
splash but Potter’s subsequent films, though arty and beautiful, haven’t resonated much for me. This one does
primarily because Potter’s two leads are at first glance, such an unlikely pair.
Neither the swan-necked Allen nor the rather ordinary looking Abkarian are physically mesmerizing but there is a
decided sexiness to their couplings. Whether this is from the acting, writing or Potter’s constant arty camera
angles and tricks I’m not sure. But in the end, against all odds, these two do seem to belong together and the fact
that Allen and Abkarian get this across, in spite of all the weight Potter has given their characters to shoulder, is
reason enough to say “Yes” to Yes.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No one, it seems, has been able to articulate our sci-fi dreams with the assurance that Steven Spielberg has, first
with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then E.T. Now, with War of the Worlds, he speaks to our
nightmares and what he envisions for us – and has the budget to put on the screen – is so over the top apocalyptic
that you finally just want to cry, “Uncle!” The picture’s a triumph of unrelenting terrorist horror in which the
director realizes one terrible thing after another. Thousands of extras are laid to waste, jet planes are crashed,
ferries toppled, people disintegrated and sucked up by the marauding alien invaders. It’s the biggest car crash
onscreen I’ve ever seen and like the rest of the audience, I didn’t want to blink or bat an eye and miss the next
epic, queasy thrill. Once during the screening I noticed a young woman trotting down the aisle, heading toward the
bathroom. “How can she leave the theatre?” I thought to myself incredulously, “She’s going to miss the next wave
of death!”
Who other than Spielberg has the clout to command such gigantic set pieces? He’s become our C.B. DeMille –
making populist spectacles for the masses. Though the picture has its share of special effects, its use of old
fashioned extras – thousands of ‘em – packed into the enormous sets and seen fleeing in terror from the ‘tripods’ is
frankly enthralling. I also loved that the tripods announce their presence with a deep, evil sounding trumpet blast
(it’s like Gabriel’s trumpet sounding). This is an ironic, bitter reversal of the friendly Mother Ship’s musical tutorial
in Close Encounters, also scored by longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams and a cool touch.
Though the movie is book ended with the story of the divorced Everyman trying to reconnect with his two kids
played by Tom Cruise Spielberg quickly dispenses with it – to the good. We don’t care much about the mundane
lives of these everyday characters and Spielberg understands that (and who cares about cuckoo Cruise and his
bizarre proselytizing at this point, anyhow?). We want to get to the extraordinary circumstances and so does the
director. He’s still as much of a kid as the rest of us and understands that destruction on this grand scale is still
pretty neat-o. Not quite as neat-o as it once was, of course.
The tragic reality of 9/11 has set the bar for imagined destruction unbelievably high but Spielberg, without
hesitation, jumps right over it. Odd to be able to breathe a sigh of relief over that but comforting, too. As War of
the Worlds makes eye-poppingly clear, our reality could get much, much worse. Let’s hope those elusive terrorists
never get a hold of Spielberg and force him to plan their next attack. We’d be in a helluva fix.
Yes, War of the Worlds
7-6-05 Knight at the Movies column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Joan Allen is having a great year at the movies. First came her transcendent performance in the recent Upside of
Anger and now she’s pulled off the amazing feat of making iambic pentameter a/k/a rhyming dialogue
sound…normal. Next up: Joan Allen performing the phone book. Okay, though Allen isn’t likely to do that yet she
really does make writer-director Sally Potter’s gimmicky conceit in Yes, her new picture, seem perfectly natural.
After awhile you stop thinking about the Dr. Seuss phrases you’d like to toss back at the characters and just let
Allen and her marvelous supporting cast, Simon Abkarian, the always dreamy Sam Neill and Shirley Henderson get
on with it.
Henderson, who played the baby voiced best friend of Renée Zellweger in both the Bridget Jones movies and
Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter pictures addresses the camera directly at the outset of Yes. She’s the
housekeeper for the affluent couple played by Allen and Neill and as she cleans she begins monologuing about how
hard it is to really get the dirt out of things. Things that appear neat and tidy really aren’t, she says, and it’s
apparent that we’re in for a lot of philosophizing. Periodically throughout the movie Henderson returns to
speechify and comment on the action, a sort of one woman Greek Chorus. And this being a treatise on class and
cultural differences, there’s a lot to comment on.
Allen plays an American-Irish scientist living in London whose marriage to Neill has become a loveless matter of
convenience. Quite by accident she meets a Lebanese expatriate (Abkarian) who was trained as a surgeon but
works as a chef. On impulse she hands him her all important cell number and he, also on impulse, gives her a ring
at just the right moment. An affair begins and spirals into directions that neither planned on. Both characters,
drawn together against their will, spend lots of time analyzing and reflecting on the differences between each
other. With all the divisions between the two (including the usual male and female generalizations) and the various
subplots that crop up, somehow the affair holds together. Inexplicably, each has found his physical and emotional
mate.
Gay audiences will be most familiar with Potter’s 1992 film version of Virginia Woolf’s gender bending novel
Orlando. Potter cast Tilda Swinton in the title role of the nobleman who eventually switches from male to female
and stays young forever at the urging of Queen Elizabeth. Potter, adding more twists to the gender
transformations, cast the late gay activist Quentin Crisp in that role and singer Jimmy Somerville as a singing
Angel (in falsetto, natch). The film, with its breathtaking cinematography, sets and costumes made a bit of a
splash but Potter’s subsequent films, though arty and beautiful, haven’t resonated much for me. This one does
primarily because Potter’s two leads are at first glance, such an unlikely pair.
Neither the swan-necked Allen nor the rather ordinary looking Abkarian are physically mesmerizing but there is a
decided sexiness to their couplings. Whether this is from the acting, writing or Potter’s constant arty camera
angles and tricks I’m not sure. But in the end, against all odds, these two do seem to belong together and the fact
that Allen and Abkarian get this across, in spite of all the weight Potter has given their characters to shoulder, is
reason enough to say “Yes” to Yes.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No one, it seems, has been able to articulate our sci-fi dreams with the assurance that Steven Spielberg has, first
with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and then E.T. Now, with War of the Worlds, he speaks to our
nightmares and what he envisions for us – and has the budget to put on the screen – is so over the top apocalyptic
that you finally just want to cry, “Uncle!” The picture’s a triumph of unrelenting terrorist horror in which the
director realizes one terrible thing after another. Thousands of extras are laid to waste, jet planes are crashed,
ferries toppled, people disintegrated and sucked up by the marauding alien invaders. It’s the biggest car crash
onscreen I’ve ever seen and like the rest of the audience, I didn’t want to blink or bat an eye and miss the next
epic, queasy thrill. Once during the screening I noticed a young woman trotting down the aisle, heading toward the
bathroom. “How can she leave the theatre?” I thought to myself incredulously, “She’s going to miss the next wave
of death!”
Who other than Spielberg has the clout to command such gigantic set pieces? He’s become our C.B. DeMille –
making populist spectacles for the masses. Though the picture has its share of special effects, its use of old
fashioned extras – thousands of ‘em – packed into the enormous sets and seen fleeing in terror from the ‘tripods’ is
frankly enthralling. I also loved that the tripods announce their presence with a deep, evil sounding trumpet blast
(it’s like Gabriel’s trumpet sounding). This is an ironic, bitter reversal of the friendly Mother Ship’s musical tutorial
in Close Encounters, also scored by longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams and a cool touch.
Though the movie is book ended with the story of the divorced Everyman trying to reconnect with his two kids
played by Tom Cruise Spielberg quickly dispenses with it – to the good. We don’t care much about the mundane
lives of these everyday characters and Spielberg understands that (and who cares about cuckoo Cruise and his
bizarre proselytizing at this point, anyhow?). We want to get to the extraordinary circumstances and so does the
director. He’s still as much of a kid as the rest of us and understands that destruction on this grand scale is still
pretty neat-o. Not quite as neat-o as it once was, of course.
The tragic reality of 9/11 has set the bar for imagined destruction unbelievably high but Spielberg, without
hesitation, jumps right over it. Odd to be able to breathe a sigh of relief over that but comforting, too. As War of
the Worlds makes eye-poppingly clear, our reality could get much, much worse. Let’s hope those elusive terrorists
never get a hold of Spielberg and force him to plan their next attack. We’d be in a helluva fix.
Let's get physical and then get blow'd up real good
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