Movies Reviews

Movie Review: Mister Lonely

By Maura Reilly May 10, 2008, 12:35 GMT

You come to expect the unusual from writer Harmony Korine and his latest project promises the same. The film which contains celebrity impersonators and flying nuns is opening in limited release this Friday. It may appeal to a wider audience that at first blush.

A Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) is MISTER LONLEY. Living and working in Paris has proven to be less fulfilling than he thought it would be. While performing at a gig in a retirement home he meets “Marilyn” (Samantha Morton) who entices Michael to journey with her to the commune where she lives with other celebrity impersonators in the Scottish Highlands. Among the denizens are Marilyn’s husband Charlie Chaplin and daughter Shirley Temple, Abe Lincoln and the Pope. Michael finds acceptance among his fellow performers but jealousy soon springs up between him and Charlie over Marlilyn. And meanwhile somewhere in Panama a group of nuns take miraculous flight.I’m going to say that MISTER LONELY is Harmony Korine’s first foray into popular cinema. I don’t know if that was his intention when creating the film but that is the result. The story lacks the acidic bite and lunacy of his previous scripts KIDS and GUMMO. With a subject like celebrity impersonators you’d think there would be a more sense of the absurd but ironically the humor comes from a more honest place. Those two things taken together add up to a more middle of the road film and probably less interesting than fans of Korine were wanting. People unaccustomed to indie films will stumble on this and think they’re seeing something avant garde. I must add that the secondary story about the skydiving nuns (which may or may not be an allegory for the filmmakers loss of innocence within the Hollywood system) with the absurd casting of director Werner Herzog as a priest came off to me as pretentious and unneeded.So called normal folks would maybe find it difficult to comprehend the thinking behind becoming an impersonator – essentially subjugating your own self to live as another. But hat’s off, the performances in this film are terrific and make that frame of mind not too out of the realm of the ordinary. Firstly Diego Luna (who by the way can really dance) gives a thoughtful performance as a young man discovering that who he is, is worth exploring. Samantha Morton’s fragile and tragic Marilyn is more like her icon than she’d probably care to acknowledge. French actor Denis Lavant gives the diminutive silent star a hard edge which provides the film’s with much or Korine’s trademark uncomfortable moments. Honorable mention to Richard Strange as honest Abe Lincoln: Here is a character ready to share his opinion and damned be the consequences. It makes for some great comedy. Admittedly I went into this film with expectations of seeing something weird, for lack of a better word. But what I saw was confusingly not weird enough. The filmmaker expressed how the writing of this film coincided with a troubling period in his life. That’s clearly manifested in the creation of characters exploring their true selves and reacting to what they discover. Even still there isn’t enough of that in the movie and this silly part about flying nuns make it not worth the investment of time and money.Mister Lonely
Running Time: 112 minutes
Playing now in New York City.
MPAA Rated: Not Rated

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