Chris Knipp
06-21-2014, 05:09 PM
Fred Schepisi: WORDS AND PICTURES (2013)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/words.jpg
JULIETTE BINOCHE IN WORDS AND PICTURES
Review by Chris Knipp
Verbal sparring and offbeat romance at a prep school
Fred Schepisi's Words and Pictures, set at a posh Maine prep school, is a celebration of language, and to some extent art. Gerald Di Pego's script is so self-consciously clever with words and busy showing them off it continually calls attention to itself, making it hard to get lost in the action, or feel your way through to the emotion. There are two overwrought, self-conscious characters, bound to spar and then come together. They're Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), an alcoholic English teacher whose writing talent has gone dry, and Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), a newly arrived painter of talent and reputation whose crippling arthritis is getting in the way of her creation. Delsanto, as Jack teasingly call her, has gadgets galore to paint despite her disability, including long pulleys to manipulate large brushes over a canvas on the floor. Jack has nothing to aid him but alcohol and plagiarism. The latter helps him stay on and edit the literary magazine, though how the school puts up with a man who has vodka on his breath every day after lunch is hard to figure. Maybe it's not such a posh school after all.
An amorous duel between Jack and Dina ensues, starting with a game involving five-syllable words and continuing with boasts and challenges about the verbal vs. the visual that would seem sophomoric if they weren't turned into a school-wide debate for the amusement of the students, and if they were not being acted out by two as accomplished as Binoche and Owen. Ultimately these two are the only reason for watching, and they may not be enough when after the two grumpy, egocentric profs go to bed, Jack takes to the bottle as a response. It's hard to see alcoholism as quirky, and impossible to see it as amusing.
One of the places where Gerald Di Pego's witty dialogue goes astray is when it makes Dina's art classes also be all about words. Shouldn't more of what happens in those, to prove the point, be non-verbal? Both teachers, seemingly desperate to prove themselves in every class, keep giving pep talks to the students, insisting that they crank out their best work on the spot right then, in half an hour.
Students don't matter much here, in contrast to other preppy dramas more focused on the youths, like Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society, whose lit prof, played by Robin Williams, similarly inspires his students, without vodka, and the emotional stakes are higher. It may be a bit corny, but isn't it nice to have a good cry (remember Mr. Chips?) or look forward to the future of the class, as in Alan Bennett's The History Boys? Schepisi's students are just wallpaper. Who would want to teach here?
Nonetheless Owen does literary cleverness and academic frumpiness surprisingly well, and Binoche manages to be both handicapped and beautiful, and harsh and pissed-off without being unpleasant. (Binoche, accomplished also as an artist, painted the pictures used in the film.) The two stars give every line and every scene their best shot, and this could come off, in a pinch, as a smart mature person's date movie.
Words and Pictures,111 mins., debuted at Toronto, played at other festivals, and opend limited in US theaters 22 May 2014. The critical reception was very mixed (Metacritic rating 49%).
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/words.jpg
JULIETTE BINOCHE IN WORDS AND PICTURES
Review by Chris Knipp
Verbal sparring and offbeat romance at a prep school
Fred Schepisi's Words and Pictures, set at a posh Maine prep school, is a celebration of language, and to some extent art. Gerald Di Pego's script is so self-consciously clever with words and busy showing them off it continually calls attention to itself, making it hard to get lost in the action, or feel your way through to the emotion. There are two overwrought, self-conscious characters, bound to spar and then come together. They're Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), an alcoholic English teacher whose writing talent has gone dry, and Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), a newly arrived painter of talent and reputation whose crippling arthritis is getting in the way of her creation. Delsanto, as Jack teasingly call her, has gadgets galore to paint despite her disability, including long pulleys to manipulate large brushes over a canvas on the floor. Jack has nothing to aid him but alcohol and plagiarism. The latter helps him stay on and edit the literary magazine, though how the school puts up with a man who has vodka on his breath every day after lunch is hard to figure. Maybe it's not such a posh school after all.
An amorous duel between Jack and Dina ensues, starting with a game involving five-syllable words and continuing with boasts and challenges about the verbal vs. the visual that would seem sophomoric if they weren't turned into a school-wide debate for the amusement of the students, and if they were not being acted out by two as accomplished as Binoche and Owen. Ultimately these two are the only reason for watching, and they may not be enough when after the two grumpy, egocentric profs go to bed, Jack takes to the bottle as a response. It's hard to see alcoholism as quirky, and impossible to see it as amusing.
One of the places where Gerald Di Pego's witty dialogue goes astray is when it makes Dina's art classes also be all about words. Shouldn't more of what happens in those, to prove the point, be non-verbal? Both teachers, seemingly desperate to prove themselves in every class, keep giving pep talks to the students, insisting that they crank out their best work on the spot right then, in half an hour.
Students don't matter much here, in contrast to other preppy dramas more focused on the youths, like Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society, whose lit prof, played by Robin Williams, similarly inspires his students, without vodka, and the emotional stakes are higher. It may be a bit corny, but isn't it nice to have a good cry (remember Mr. Chips?) or look forward to the future of the class, as in Alan Bennett's The History Boys? Schepisi's students are just wallpaper. Who would want to teach here?
Nonetheless Owen does literary cleverness and academic frumpiness surprisingly well, and Binoche manages to be both handicapped and beautiful, and harsh and pissed-off without being unpleasant. (Binoche, accomplished also as an artist, painted the pictures used in the film.) The two stars give every line and every scene their best shot, and this could come off, in a pinch, as a smart mature person's date movie.
Words and Pictures,111 mins., debuted at Toronto, played at other festivals, and opend limited in US theaters 22 May 2014. The critical reception was very mixed (Metacritic rating 49%).