For you whisky connoisseurs, they had just one variety of Glenfiddich but were serving it with a slice of orange, a lime wedge, or cloves and dried ginger. I sipped mine and found out I still don't like whisky, even with an orange slice. But throwing the drink out would be rude and wasteful. After a few more sips, I realized I really shouldn't drink alcohol and certainly not after having eaten nothing all day but half of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich -- the room started spinning. So I had to be rude and wasteful and toss it.
Maybe a little more alcohol -- or a lot more -- would have provided the missing something that would have made The Man from Elysian Fields memorable. It could almost be a cult movie if it had a little more David Lynch, plus a bracing shot of cynicism. You might wonder if a movie about a man who becomes a male escort to support his family should be any more cynical, but the core story is sappy, predictable, and pedestrian: the whole "for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul" bromide. I'd be exaggerating if I said it was a good movie, but it wasn't a bad one, either -- it's bizarrely entertaining in its way.
Andy Garcia plays Byron, a failed writer (and by all indications, particularly his reading of an excerpt from his book at the end of the movie, justifiably so) whose home life revolves entirely around him and his failed writing -- every discussion is of his writing or lack thereof, and his wife (poor Julianna Margulies) coos old reviews of his book to arouse him in bed. (The wife's character is only what touches Byron directly; the rest of her doesn't exist.) For all his whining about being ashamed of not being able to provide for his family and having no money, Byron sure tosses it around freely -- he drinks a lot, he buys a stack of hardcover books (although perhaps he has no choice; the opening narration of Pasadena's creepily superficial wonders doesn't mention a public library) and rents office space in which to stare dully at the computer, rather than doing it at home.
Oh, no, that's right -- he has to rent the office for plot reasons, because that's where he meets Mick Jagger (dressed like an extra from Absolute Beginners and looking like the horrible result if Willem Dafoe and John Hurt got trapped together in one of those transporter things from The Fly and their DNA merged), who runs the Elysian Fields male escort service in a Mephistophelian way (Conan O'Brien said that Jagger doesn't mind playing a pimp because it's the world's second oldest profession -- after "being in the Rolling Stones"). For whatever reason, Jagger decides Byron would make a super gigolo and recruits him. At first Byron is all moral and stuff, but eventually he goes the Faust way and gets a long-term lease with the young wife (Olivia Williams) of an elderly Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Tobias Allcott. As Allcott, James Coburn is the swift kick in the ass the movie needs by now; he's tremendously entertaining and by far the best thing in the film.
The odd ménage chez Allcott is interesting and provocative, but the answer the mainstream is definitely looking for is that Byron indeed gained the world and lost his soul, and now he has to do penance. So the movie submissively kneels to convention. I mean, yawn.
Still, the film has off-beat, sly humor (and maybe some unintentional humor as well), and some of the sets are terrifically colorful and sleek. With the fun camera work, it's entertaining to watch, although I think some chemical stimulation would certainly give the visuals an extra boost (alas, I can't test that theory). Jagger's no John Hurt or Willem Dafoe, but he's pretty fun and is always good for a sight gag if nothing else (the distance his lips extend from his face when he purses them is downright scary). I wouldn't warn you away from going to see the movie, but I would suggest you have a couple of shots -- or whatever your chemical of choice is -- beforehand. And the film wouldn't lose anything by seeing it on video, so you could even keep drinking throughout the movie, which probably would steadily increase its entertainment value.
Oh, and this
happened: this heavy, old woman kept hobbling up
and down the aisle throughout the movie, mostly to get food (she
clearly
had trouble walking yet chose to sit about ten rows down from the back
rather than right at the back of the theater). On one of her
passes,
she leaned toward me and said loudly, "I shouldn't have had that
7-Up."
And then everyone glared at me as though I had asked her to
keep
me updated on her bladder.
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