Lemony Snicket not so fresh 

By Lady Liberty
web posted December 20, 2004 

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

* 1/2 out of **** 

The Lemony Snicket books weren't around when I was a child.
In fact, I'd never heard of them until word came out that a movie
was being made. I often prefer to read a book before seeing the
movie made from it, so I hurried to get my hands on the first
three volumes of about a dozen Lemony Snicket books before
the movie was released. It was just a week ago when I sat down
to read the volumes and found myself both enchanted and
amused by them. As a result, I was more than ever looking
forward to seeing the film. Having left the theatre earlier this
afternoon, I now find myself considering just the right words to
sum up my thoughts at the moment. "Disappointing" comes to
mind. So does "let down." Lemony Snicket himself might even
call it "horrendous," which in this case means "all the money and
marketing in the world can't help good actors overcome a truly
awful script."

The general story told by the movie is relatively true to the one
you'll find in the books, up to and including narration by Lemony
Snicket (Jude Law) himself. In the story, the Beaudelaire
orphans (Violent, played by Emily Browning; Klaus, played by
Liam Aiken; and Sunny, played in turns by Kara and Shelby
Hoffman) lose their parents in a terrible fire. Mr. Poe (Timothy
Spall), a bank and the executor of their wealthy parents' estate,
places the children in the care of a distant relative who calls
himself Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). The Count is not surprisingly
more interested in the fortune the children will inherit than in the
children themselves.

The Count uses the children as virtual slaves even as he schemes
to get the money. As his efforts become fraught with danger for
his three wards, Mr. Poe is finally convinced they might be better
off elsewhere. The children then move to live with their
herpetologist Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly), and later still reside
briefly with their Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep). Any hope of
happiness for the orphans is, however, dashed as Count Olaf
continues his machinations to get his hands on the Beaudelaire
fortune by getting rid of the Beaudelaire children once and for all.

Though the acting is mostly of high caliber (publicists have been
touting Jim Carrey's performance as Oscar®-worthy -- and it is
very good), the script is abysmal. And though the sets are largely
spectacular and with liberal doses of perfectly rendered
surrealism, that doesn't make up for bad editing and far too much
advantage being taken of "poetic license."

Along with Jim Carrey, both Billy Connolly and Meryl Streep
are excellent, and Emily Browning likely has a successful future
ahead of her. Dustin Hoffman, in a minor uncredited cameo, was
amusing less for his performance than his presence alone. Also
putting in an appearance are SCTV alum Catherine O'Hara and
Jennifer Coolidge. I am, however, at a loss to explain how
anyone had the lack of sense to cast Cedric the Entertainer. He's
a terrible actor, and he spoke his lines with a strong urban flavor
and even occasionally the language to match in jarring contrast to
the "feel" of the rest of the film (that the director either thought
that was okay or let him get away with it is indicative of the fact
the director wasn't much better at directing than Cedric is at
acting).

My advice: The books are so well written and offer such an able
assist to the imagination that even a good movie would have
been mere icing on the cake. This bad movie actually took away
from the delight of the books, and that may be its worst trait of
all.

POLITICAL NOTES: One theme running throughout the story
of the Beaudelaire orphans is so obvious and integral a part of
the plot that it's almost easy to overlook. From the moment the
children are orphaned, the authorities insist that they know best
in spite of the childrens' fervent complaints. In fact, the children
are all too often dismissed as lying or at least exaggerating. It
seems melodramatic onscreen, but you need look no further than
the papers to see child welfare services failing children
everywhere. In some cases, authorities refuse to remove children
from danger (sometimes failing to investigate at all), and in others
insist children be returned to abusive homes.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Lemony Snicket's A Series of
Unfortunate Events is rated PG for "thematic elements, scary
situations, [and] brief language." The plot (death and murder
feature prominently) is too adult for little ones, and the fact that
most of the rare good lines are subtitled gibberish uttered by a
baby means anyone seeing the movie had best be able to read.
But frankly, those old enough to read the subtitles should stay
home and read the books. They really are that good and the
movie is, I'm sorry to say, that bad.

Closer

*** out of **** 

It took a little while for this film to make its way from the larger
theatrical venues to my smaller town. But the critical word on the
movie was such that I was just about ready to make the sacrifice
of a road trip to head for a larger city to see it. Thankfully, it
showed up in a local theatre this weekend. There was little
fanfare and even less advertising for the movie, but I suspect that
any area movie buff who has been paying attention was in the
audience this weekend for their first chance to see Closer. I was
no exception.

Closer tells the story of four people who become intertwined
through a series of mischances, accidents, betrayals, love, and
lust in modern day London. First, Dan (Jude Law) meets Alice
(Natalie Portman) when he is passing by as she is struck by a
cab. Captivated by what he calls her "disarming" charm, the two
become lovers. Then Dan meets Anna (Julia Roberts) when she
is hired to photograph him for a book jacket. The attraction
there, too, is instant at least from Dan's side. Feeling rebuffed by
Anna's disinclination to involve herself in a relationship with a
man who is living with another woman, he wreaks a subtle
vengeance against Anna that eventually leads to her meeting
Larry (Clive Owen), a lonely dermatologist. As each character
loves and loses, is betrayed and betrays, the four are bound
more tightly and ever increasingly against their will into a painful
quadrangle of mingled relationships. Larry insists forgiveness is
the only way love can survive, but is unable to forgive; Dan
confesses he's an idiot. Anna masters a mask of happiness to
cover her lack of fulfillment, and Alice has a story of her own
that simmers far beneath the surface of the emotional Bohemian
others find so fascinating.

The plot is both deceptively simple and complex, much as
relationships themselves can be. Originally a stage play (Clive
Owen played Dan in the live production, but has graduated to
the more mature Larry here), many of the lines still resound with
the flavor of the boardwalk. If there's a flaw in Closer, it's that
the dialogue -- which would have been perfectly suitable in a live
stage setting -- echoes of the stage here, and "stagey" isn't a
compliment when it's describing character interactions in a movie
setting. But even in light of lines that really don't work well
onscreen, the actors pull it off. In fact, Closer is a tour de force
of acting. Astonishingly, none of the actors overwhelms the
others or the production by emoting too much or instilling
melodrama into roles that are already dramatic enough. Julia
Roberts shows that her Oscar® was no fluke; Jude Law may
find himself nominated again for an Oscar® of his own (the
studio is pushing nominations for both as leads). But the Golden
Globe nominations just released may herald a more likely result
when the organization skipped over Roberts and Law while
nominating Clive Owen and Natalie Portman for their supporting
roles. Owen and Portman are both astounding, and in the
company of performances like those given here by Roberts and
Law, that's really saying something. Portman in particular is
nothing less than brilliant.

The direction -- ably handled by award-winning director Mike
Nichols -- and the editing do a fine job of adapting the stage play
for the big screen. Although the early moments of the film seem a
bit slow, and there is some confusion when scenes change,
everything is tied together nicely and the early moments make
sense in later, more fully fleshed context. The confusion really
only lasts until your brain catches up with the idea that there are
gaps in time between some of the scenes that you don't know
about until the characters start talking about past events that have
obviously occurred between the scene you're watching now and
the one that just ended. In truth, I wondered for about 15
minutes if I was watching yet another much-touted and deeply
disappointing film. As it turns out, those 15 minutes were set-up
for what proved to be a movie that I found very effective -- and
more than a little affecting.

I recognized parts of myself and my own past relationships in
brief snippets of each character, and found myself wounded at
times right along with the hurting people onscreen. I imagine the
same will prove true for most people. Closer is very much the
story of how much love can hurt, not only in the ways we can be
hurt by those we love or the manner in which we can hurt them,
but most painfully of all in the way we can sometimes choose to
rub salt into our own bleeding wounds. Closer hurts at times to
watch, but it's also cathartic in some ways. To leave a theatre
drained by the pain of others is testament to just how real those
others have become and how much you care about them, warts
and all. That's something that only the most well made films are
capable of doing, and Closer falls neatly into that category of
movie.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Closer is rated R for "sequences of
graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality, [and] language." This is
not a movie for children. That sexual dialogue is explicit, and the
language no less so. In fact, even teenagers who could handle the
language simply don't have enough life experience to appreciate
much of the story that Closer tries to tell. Frankly, without the
ability to relate to at least one of the characters, Closer would
lose a great deal of its impact. But for anyone old enough to have
loved and lost, or even more importantly to have loved and
overcome loss, Closer will prove a bittersweet and perhaps
haunting tribute to what so many of us have suffered in our own
lives.

Lady Liberty is a graphic designer and pro-freedom activist
currently residing in the Midwest. More of her writings and other
political and educational information is available on her web site,
Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House, at
http://www.ladylibrty.com. E-mail Lady Liberty at
ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com.

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