Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
November 19, 2004
Universal/ Miramax
Comedy, Drama, Romance
DVD
C

The faults of Bridget Jones 1-- notably the manipulative soundtrack and directing choices-- are even stronger here in the three-years-later-made but set-the-following-year sequel.  (And Bridget is now born in '72, which makes her a year younger than last time.)  Renée Zellweger as Jones is back, as are her two men, Colin Firth as Mark Darcy and Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver.  And so are a whole bunch of mostly under-used perfomers, among them Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as Bridget's parents; James Callis, Shirley Henderson, and Sally Phillips as Bridget's friends; James Faulkner and Celia Imrie as Geoffrey and Una Alconbury; Neil Pearson as Richard Finch (Bridget's boss at Sit Up, Britain); Donald Douglas as Admiral (formerly just Mr.) Darcy; and Dominic McHale as Bernard.  I was pleased that Phillips as Shazzer (looking quite fetching, especially in a Beatles cap) has more to do this time, but at that, even she disappears for chunks of the movie at a time.

What we're left with is a mix of unfunny slapstick and uneven drama.  Although the film is ostensibly (and Austensibly, this time influenced by Persuasion) about what happens after Happily Ever After, it's never really that convincing that Bridget and Mark are happy together.  So it's hard to care when they have a pregnancy scare or break up.  And when Daniel returns, it seems she may as well get off (and go off) with him instead.  I almost went with a C- on this, but I don't think it's bad, just disappointing.  And at that, it's sort of nice to see everyone again, although I wish they'd been given more to work with.  (I've read but don't own the book this is based on, although at the time of my reading blog I thought I did.)

Ray Donn was a Limo Driver in Bride & Prejudice, is a customer here, and would be a Policeman in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Campbell Graham returns as Hamish and would be a Ministry Wizard in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,  while Sam Beazley is Very Old Man here and would be Everard in Order of the Phoenix, and Jessica Stevenson is Magda here and would be the voice of Mafalda Hopkirk in Phoenix.  Tom Brooke, who plays a Production Assistant, would be Thick Kevin in Pirate Radio.

Bride & Prejudice

Bride & Prejudice
October 8, 2004
Miramax etc.
Romance, Musical, Comedy
DVD
B

This has obvious, surface similarities to Monsoon Wedding (2001) in that both are about large families living in modern-day India, and both films show the influence of Bollywood.  Also, as the titles suggest, weddings are important in both stories, although Wedding covers a shorter span of time, just the days leading up to and including a wedding, while here, in the Jane-Austen-inspired plot, much more attention is paid to how couples get together, and how they are sometimes separated, perhaps temporarily, perhaps not.  Besides the change in settings (not just India, but also London and L.A.), and such touches as email, the major differences from Pride and Prejudice are that Mr. Kohli is much more sympathetic (if still very comical) and the exact nature of Wickham's seductions and attempts is changed.  Other changes, such as the omission of Kitty Bennet, serve to streamline the movie, as the omission of various characters did in Sense & Sensibility (1995).

This came out shortly before the Keira Knightley P & P.  As with Paltrow's Emma vs. Clueless, I prefer the movie that is stylistically less faithful but more truly faithful to the spirit of the original novel.  The themes and the essence of the Austen novel are captured well, but there's also, particularly in the first third of the movie, a lot of what one song calls "color, light, and sound," the same dazzling elements seen in Monsoon, but with much better music.  The definite stand-out is "No Life Without Wife," where the four pajama-clad sisters are playful, romantic, and, well, sisterly, and the song is very catchy to boot.

Aishwarya Rai as Lalita (the Lizzy equivalent) is almost too perfect: witty and clever of course, but also devastatingly beautiful and of course musically talented, including playing the guitar.  She's also both feminist and proudly traditionally Indian.  In contrast, Martin Henderson as Will Darcy (equivalent to guess who) is a little bland.  It's a romance where I don't mind the main couple getting together but I don't feel terribly invested in it.  Luckily, as in the original novel, there are so many interesting side characters that it doesn't ultimately matter.

Emma

Emma
August 30, 1996
Miramax
Comedy, Romance, Historical
VHS
C+

While on the surface this may seem like a faithful adaptation of the Austen novel, I find it much less in the spirit than Clueless, not to mention the contemporary Kate Beckinsale TV-movie.  I'm going to have to blame writer-director Douglas McGrath for the main flaws: general miscasting (especially of Harriet), a cutesy device of a sentence being started in one scene ("So then I said....") and then finished in the next ("How delightful!"), and the shafting of the Frank Churchill/ Jane Fairfax subplot.  (Enchanted April's Polly Walker and 25-year-old Ewan McGregor both do their best, but they're given little to work with and are misdirected in most of what they do get.)

That said, there are moments when the film forgets its own unnecessary flourishes and focuses on Austen's still great dialogue and plotting.  Even if the cast isn't quite right, it is an interesting assemblage, including 23-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role (sufficiently British but too pouty), 31-year-old Alan Cumming as Mr. Elton, and of course Emma Thompson's mother and 34-year-old sister as Mrs. and Miss Bates.  I have to note that Jeremy Northam as Mr. Knightley and Greta Scacchi as Mrs. Weston are both much more interesting and attractive than anyone else in the movie, and I would've actually rather have watched a far from canonical backstory of them being in love ten or fifteen years earlier.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility
January 26, 1996
Columbia
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Historical
DVD
B+

My review of the book is here:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2011/12/sense-and-sensibility.html.  On balance, I think the movie and book are equal, for reasons I discuss there.  So let me just mention a few things, I didn't cover before, in particular, the casting.  As you can see, I've tagged a heck of a lot of people, three of whom were in Peter's Friends:  Emma Thompson of course, and Hugh Laurie & Imelda Staunton, again playing a married couple, although their height difference is used for more comic effect here.  Everyone of the tagged performers, except the two Hughs and Imogen Stubbs (who is Lucy here and would shortly appear in Twelfth Night with Imelda Staunton), would be in at least one Harry Potter movie, while Grant and Jones would be in both Bridget Jones movies.

This cast cosiness adds to the feel of the movie, which is, as it title suggests, very much about thoughts and feelings.   (And Thompson, whose marriage to Kenneth Branagh was breaking up at the time, would find love with Greg Wise, who plays Willoughby here.)  With the female side of the Dashwood family in particular (Jones, Thompson, Kate Winslet, and a quite good Emilie François as Margaret), we see how much they care, not in a corny way but as if the family is central to their identities, romances aside.  Watch for instance how Edward's proposal is told not through Thompson and Grant but through the reactions of her mother and sisters.  Meanwhile, Alan Rickman gives a performance throughout the film that is more about what he doesn't say than what he does.  (And he already has developed the Snapian pauses by the way.)

The other thing I really appreciated this go-round was the scenery.  It's not as lovely as Italy in Enchanted April, but in its own understated way England (Devonshire especially) is figurative as well as literal background to the mood of the story.

Clueless

The now iconic poster

Clueless
July 19, 1995
Paramount
Comedy, Romance
DVD
B+

The same boyfriend that I saw Party Girl with also invited me to this movie.  He most enjoyed the skateboarding sequence, and I wished I had someone to discuss the Jane Austen parallels with.  Luckily, some of the savvier reviews got that this was a modernized, Beverly Hills version of Emma.  Not in every detail (there's no Jane Fairfax for instance), but with enough to have fun spotting.  E.g. Cher (the Emma character, played by Alicia Silverstone) and her best friend Dionne (sort of Mrs. Weston, played by Stacey Dash) are both named after pop-singers, so it's a nice touch that Mr. Elton becomes Elton (as in Elton John).

In retrospect, the parallels seem obvious, but you have to remember that this was just before the Jane Austen revival of the mid to late '90s.  And a teen movie was the last place I expected to find such parallels.  The Austenisms aside, the movie remains a sweet, witty, slightly naughty, very '90s romp.  It was made in partial reaction to grunge (the scene of the boys in backwards baseball caps and baggy pants remains classic, especially since now many of those boys are now middle-aged and still wearing their caps like that), and also as a post-'80s fantasy of various parts of LA.  The vocabulary was close enough to the Val-speak of my own adolescence a dozen years earlier that I could follow it pretty well, although it might seem foreign to those from other backgrounds.

Written and directed by Amy Heckerling, it is both miles from Johnny Dangerously in setting and theme, and not entirely unlike.  Both movies have protagonists who are on top of the world and about to fall, yet still going to come out on top.  They also both have wonderful supporting performances that almost steal the show from the charismatic leads.  And they're both very quotable.

I must note that all three of my 1995 movies have a colorful, happy, and gay-friendly vibe.  This is not how the '90s are necessarily remembered, and it's definitely not true of my '96ers.  But these three embrace a retro, cheerfully defiant attitude, while acknowledging the cynicism of the larger culture.  Also, as in The Brady Bunch Movie, the proliferation of cell phones in LA is used for humor that has dated immeasurably.

Paul Rudd, then 26, makes his big-screen debut as Josh, the Mr. Knightley character, if Mr. Knightley were a smart but slightly pretentious college student who listens to "complaint rock" and briefly grows "chin pubes."  (I told you this was very '90s.)  He would immediately become one of my movie crushes, and remain so these two decades.  We will definitely be seeing more of him.

This time, Dan Hedaya plays Cher's father, Mel Horowitz, cast against type as he was in Tune in Tomorrow....  Julie Brown as Ms. Stoeger, the lesbian PE teacher, is nothing like her character in Earth Girls.  Donald Faison, who's Murray, and Breckin Meyer, who's Travis Birkenstock, would both be Du Jour members in Josie and the Pussycats.  Much of the cast would go on to the Clueless TV series, which ran for three years.

Carl Gottlieb, who's the Priest here, was Dr. Magnus in Johnny Dangerously.  Bobbie Sunday Starr, Passenger in Jeep here, gave Marcia a dirty look in The Brady Bunch Movie.  Aida Linares, who's Lucy the maid here, would be Theresa in The First Wives Club.

"Kind of a Baldwin"?  As if!  Much cuter than Stephen et al.