Water For Elephants (Francis Lawrence, 2011), The Next Three Days (Paul Haggis, 2010) and Anything For Her (Fred Cavaye, 2008)
Posted: September 28, 2011 Filed under: Films | Tags: Anything For Her, Christoph Waltz, Cinema, DVD, Film, Francis Lawrence, Fred Cavaye, Hal Holbrook, Movie, Paul Haggis, Pour Elle, Reese Witherspoon, review, Robert Pattinson, Russell Crowe, the Next Three Days, Vincent Lindon, Water For Elephants Leave a comment »“I couldn’t take wondering…“
Certainty kills drama and cripples cinema; whether it’s the ending you see a mile away, the main character that is never really in peril or even the trailer that tells you all of this before the film even opens. Certainty is comforting but comfort is overrated.
Water for Elephants commits one of the cardinal sins in having the needless bookend scenes where Hal Holbrook turns up at a circus and says ‘it was back in 1930 wotsit’. Immediately we know who lives to tell the tale and, more crucially, we know that he is a good person beyond reproach. This is then followed by some scene setting that merely underlines this goodness with the emotional shortcut of tragedy. In a film lacking drama we could have done with meeting the main character as he was jumping onto the railway car. We would know that he is running but we would not be sure why or whether or not this guy is just a chancer. As it happens this drench of information hampers both the audience and actor; Robert Pattinson, Christolph Waltz and Reese Witherspoon have a hard time convincing when there is barely any acting to do.
Another film let down by certainty is The Next Three Days. As a remake of the French thriller Anything For Her, it acquits itself as well as these things usually do and delivers the usual shallow enjoyment but the story is burdened with an extra 30 minutes and almost all of it is certainty. Certainty that the wife is the good woman we hope she is and the police have made a mistake. Certainty that the authorities will do what’s best regarding those doubts.. Certainty so certain that extra time needs to be taken up with contrivances least we feel too safe.
Anything For Her is a much leaner and smarter piece on entertainment. It contains doubts and, therefore, dangers. We are sure she is a good woman but then again maybe not and actor Vincent Lindon brings a vulnerability that Crowe can’t hope to match.
Anything For Her is living cinema, The Next Three Days and Water For Elephants are just dead stories.
All three films are available on DVD.
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