Hillary Swank makes the best of her lonely heart role but never gets to take off the gloves in an entertaining romantic drama. Supporting she-wolf Lisa Kudrow steals the show
In a career move that takes more guts than getting into a boxing ring, Hilary Swank takes on something completely different. After two knock-out Oscar performances in “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Million Dollar Baby” she stars in a romantic drama that demands a dynamically opposed performance. She is opposite Gerard Butler (“300”) who does a good job as the doting mate, but doesn’t get to be much more than that. At least before he dies.
Holly (Swank) and Gerry (Butler) are very much in love as testified by their typical young-married squabbles over children and their financial future. Gerry comes very close to being the stereotypical all-American guy---a TV stud who is loyal and lovable but scattered and immature (see Robin Williams’ kid-in-man’s-clothing opposite Sally Fields’ urban professional in “Mrs. Doubtfire”).
Luckily for all of us Gerry dies of a brain tumor before this can get too old, because it gets old fast. When Gerry dies there is no more future for the two. In fact, Holly is not sure if there is any future for her at all.
Holly’s mother Elizabeth (Kathy Bates) is there for her but she has her own relationship demon. Her ex, Holly’s father, left them both in the lurch when Holly was young. Her mother harbors a strong resentment that is transformed into an irrational coldness over Gerry’s unavoidable death. She cannot help but connect Gerry’s leaving with her earlier abandonment.
Close friends Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon are also there for Holly but they do little to help her get past the loss.
The plot revolves around a series of letters that Gerry wrote to Holly as he lived the last days of his life. The letters are meant to help her get past his death. They are delivered in the most inexplicable ways, setting up a mild mystery to accompany the main question of if and how Holly will move on.
So there are three mysteries: the mystery of the arriving letters, the mystery of mom Elizabeth’s emotional health and the mystery of Holly’s future. Better than the average rom-com, that’s for sure. But it gets even better.
In the first twenty minutes of the film, lenser Terry Stacey (“The Nanny Diaries,” “American Splendor”) and director Richard LaGravenese (“The Fisher King,” “Bridges of Madison County”) pull out all the stops with some of the fastest and most colorful shots you will ever see. The cinematography in the film is some of most imaginative out there. The sound comes from in the frame and outside the frame as characters move in and out of the shots in a fast and precise choreography. Shots are through windows and doors, in mirrors, around objects and are executed with virtuosity and imagination.
There are always things happening off screen, inviting the audience to expand the screen with their imagination. A fast one-two of the three women mugging on first the right and then left of a partition in a pub in Ireland is simply great stuff. Throwaway, yes, but it takes the film a notch up from the ordinary.
The off screen voice-overs are an entirely appropriate segue into the voice from the past of Gerry’s letters. The visual feast is accompanied by a great soundtrack by original music master John Powell (“Happy Feet,” “Ice Age: The Meltdown,” “The Bourne Supremacy”) that matches the complex blocking and cinematography beat for beat. The New York setting is not overplayed and the apartment and neighborhood are realistic---cramped and not overly clean or cute.
The last half of the film sees it teetering into schlock sci-fi with some dream scenes that do nothing but detract from the overall depth and genius of the overall presentation. But those parts are short and sweet. The location shifts to Ireland where Holly and Gerry first met and memories of Gerry meld with Holly meeting a new Gerry look-alike. Things go downhill from here until the surprise ending brings it all back home. But the dream fantasies are brief compared to the overall composed and well thought out work of the majority of the film.
Unfortunately for Swank, she is not at her best. Maybe we expect too much after her previous two nuclear Oscar performances. Her lines, and the overall plot, are not up to what she had in the past. Nevertheless this is still a remarkable performance that shows her versatility and celebrates her commitment to performing a broad range of roles.
Of the supporting cast, Lisa Kudrow flat out steals the show playing a brutally honest man-hunter in a world where honest man-hunting is not necessarily politically correct. Harry Connick plays a feckless bartender with some funny lines. Kathy Bates is all she can be—one of the best there ever was.
Release: December 21, 2007
USA
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