Reviews

This is one of the best roles of James Mason's career, and it's a long, distinguished one indeed, with more than its share of underrated masterpieces (Michael Powell's "Age of Consent") and overrated mediocrities (Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out) for film fans to dig through. This role is perfect for Mason because no one is better than he at playing elegant scoundrels that you can't help but admire for their craftiness. You root for this spy to double cross everybody all the way even though it might mean the allies losing WWII, etc. And the ending is wonderfully ambiguous and evily hilarious with Mason laughing his head off and not caring that he's personally in a very tight spot but thoroughly amused that the "Contessa" who tried to double-cross him had 'gotten hers.' One of the best written and acted American films of the '50s.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's so provocative about this movie? Why did Robert Downey Jr. lie to the two girls? Here's my take on it. SPOILERS AHEAD. Not because he couldn't 'bag' (if you're offended by that word you shouldn't go anywhere near a Toback movie) both of them without lying: after all, neither of the girls are married to him, and he could've openly had two or three semi-serious girlfriends and a whole truckload of groupies as a bachelor and up-and-coming actor (as many young studs in the 'business' are known to have); he lied because he wanted two serious relationships at the same time, two real girlfriends at the same time, almost like bigamy; he didn't lie to get the girls to physically put-out, he lied to get them to spiritually commit a part of themselves that they otherwise wouldn't. So when he says that he loved both of them equally (or almost equally), he pretty much means it; and when he had said to each girl that other girls now disgust him, he really meant that too, in the spiritual sense that is. He may have had a few mainly physical encounters but spiritually and romantically he's basically tied to these two women, one of whom will eventually have to go because of time constraints or a slightly higher level of incompatibility. The same would obviously apply if a girl had willingly put herself in this rather flattering dilemma (as the poster for Truffaut's `Jules et Jim' on the wall constantly implies, a film in which there was no deception but which ended tragically because Jeanne Moreau refused to give up her irrational desire to be loved by more than one man until she turned off both of them).

What I think Toback is trying to do is show people ways of communicating they haven't considered or have been programmed to overlook. He's trying to say that this situation doesn't have to end up negatively or in some kind of overblown melodrama, though it's definitely prime material for farce. Every attempt at taking it to that cliche area of hurt and shattered and devastated feelings, and overblown psychotic role playing imposed by half-baked and prejudiced societal rules is shown to be not only ridiculous but transcendable by only a little strength and street-or-book-or-other-wise perspective. Of course, the Natasha Gregson Wagner character is the one that shows the most strength because she gets the short end and refuses to stoop to fighting for her man with Heather Graham; not only that, she doesn't even break relations with Graham and asks her to call her. . In 99 out of a hundered other films as soon as Graham and Downey start getting it on in that other room, Gregson Wagner would've broken a whole bunch of Downey's bric-a-brac-furniture, stormed out the apartment cursing and slammed the door, or, barged in on them and had a tantrum wanting to kill both of them. But is that kind of impulsive over-reaction all human beings are capable of? No, and Toback shows that 'it's just friggin sex' it's not the end of the world and it can be dealt with intelligently and calmly, not through some ridiculous tantrum. Toback is a guy who came up in the sixties and was mentioned by Football-Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown in the book `Out of Bounds' as one of the frequent guests at the pre-planned and carefully orchestrated open orgies he used to host at his Hollywood Hills home back in the wild days when the parties wouldn't end. If his widely publicised reputation is correct then he's definitely not new to womanizing, promiscuity and weird relationship scenes, and, apparently he's learned some hard lessons from his experiences and is trying to impart some of them in this film. But what he's laying down here in this film for the so-called 'repressed-propogandized-and-politicized-fear-of-death-thru-AIDS '90s' isn't anything new but basically what many widely read books of the late '60s and early '70s dealt with, books like `Pairing,' `Open Marriage,' etc. They dealt with the fact that sexual desires don't go away but are willingly not acted upon because the time spent pursuing them could be better spent in the main relationship. If they're acted upon physically, that's where it usually ends and the level of intimacy doesn't seem to be worth it compared to the main relationship, therefore further reinforcing the main bond. Also, if there's no strong relationship to hold a man and a woman together, traditional restraints will make cheating more attractive, not less. And even if there is a strong relationship, traditional restraints will definitely work to weaken it by not offering free access to curiosity and making the grass seem greener on the other side than it is, not offer any kind of ridiculous 'insurance' against cheating. The problem, of course, is always TIME, all serious relationships must in the end end up pretty much monogamous (in spirit if not exactly 100% in physical fact) because there is simply too much time and energy required to carry on even as little as two serious love affairs on a high level.. That's the whole argument of the classic book `Open Marriage' which is sneered at by many a pseudo-intellectual '90s 'New-Age Hick' but still as thoroughly relevant today as it ever was, and which amounts to a license to cheat only for people who do not have a serious enough relationship to begin with. Because it's an 'individually tailored' one-to-one thing if it happens to be working on a compatible level: no other relationship could duplicate the uniqueness of what you have with that person and it would simply take too much TIME to build the same level of relationship with someone else, time which would be much more rewardingly spent on the relationship you already have. And if you look at all the 'traditional marriage' people who sneer at that, the statistics speak for themselves: for every relatively good relationship you'll most probably find 10 dead or happy-to-be-mediocre lukewarm ones maintained for the sake of appearances that can be seen through in two seconds, 10 more that have gone beyond the stultifying effects of a 'closed relationship' to cheating and deception to find some 'happiness-fix' on the side, or, most abundantly, divorce. In Toback's film, Downey's deception leaves Natasha Gregson Wagner out in the cold but she's strong enough to not give too much of a damn about someone like Downey whose lying has put her in a position to get hurt because she happens to be a tad less interesting to him than Heather Graham who has just reclaimed him by giving him sex; she's strong enough to not show her hurt for his satisfaction or to stoop to wanting to fight for a weasel him with Graham. She stays above it, talks things over a while, wishes them the best and moves on. Not realistic? If we're talking in general terms absolutely not; but in individual terms, absolutely yes. There are 4 or 5 people out of a hundred maybe strong enough to pull a Natasha Gregson Wagner exit. And the value of Toback's film is that it chooses to show that rather than the 95 ways how it ought to end in total disaster.

As good an actor as he is, Robert Downy Jr. (much like the great Kevin Friggin Spacey) can get incredibly annoying, especially when he's basically playing versions of his obnoxious real-life self: he just never seems to be able to calm down for even two seconds without some other arrogant wise-crack spurting out of his mouth again in the next instant. This is pretty much his real personality as evidenced in some of the documentary work he did interviewing people at the Democratic convention a while back (where he made a fool of himself). He's perfect for this role, of course, but I often find him so grating that I can't help wondering what a more controlled master actor like like Sean Penn or a 'cool' actor like Matt Dillon would've done with this role (Dillon's 'coolness' may have gotten in the way, but Penn has played many characters like this before). They may or may not have been better I don't know. Downey's perfect because he's just the kind of weasel that shouldn't be fussed over too much, or god forbid, fought over as he'd no doubt like Natasha Gregson Wagner to do. But, overall, the hilarity outweighs the nausea factor enough for me to stay interested. Heather Graham is also perfect for her role because she's not only a talented actress but has a uniquely 'angelic' character, a girl who at her angriest, cursing ten miles a minute, still seems nice and sweet and not all that b---chy. She can also do a sex scene that's a shot or two away from being X-rated, in which Downey Jr. tries to give 'addicted to crack' a new meaning (in the NC-17 version out on this video that wasn't shown in the theatres), and then come out looking like an untouched, virgin schoolgirl, again owing to her Botticelli-angel-like look (the great French-American actress Julie Delpy from `Before Sunrise' `Passion of Beatrice' and `Killing Zoe' also has that look, but less raw sex-appeal). Graham's 'angelic' look totally creates the erotic tension and shock Toback is looking to induce when things get a bit hardcore because you certainly don't expect her to be quite as wild as she suddenly shows herself to be, especially with Gregson Wagner being in the other room. Her very unique, almost one-of-a-kind look and temperament puts her in very interesting contrast to Natasha Gregson Wagner whose anger is more directly cutting, familiar and menacing but the sting of which is taken out a bit by the fact that she's so cute and petite and all that, like a little cartoon-minx version of mom Natalie Wood (and how much better does Toback use her talents in this film than Larry Clark did in that pretentious, awful, mess `Trouble in Paradise'!). I liked the fact that Toback lets the characters get right into flawless recitations of the lines, Greek-tragedy-Shakespeare-like without any method acting nonsense of intentional mistakes and mumbling Brando-pauses thrown in to add 'real-life' realism and naturalism and all that. He doesn't mind being pseudo-transcendent and bogus-mythic as long as it saves him from the dead-end of naturalism. He gets right down to the point in as clear a way as possible, and who says people can't be this articulate at-the-drop-of-a-hat in 'real life?' Why the hell not?! There are some articulate people around who don't talk like Pesci and DeNiro and Brando in 'real-life' (or any other 'life' on the world's stage, for that matter), you know! But the drawback here, is also precisely this theatricality which gets a little too heavy handed and is not as light-touched and subtle and cinematic as it needs to be to achieve greatness (as in the amazing 'invisible total cinema' films of Eric Rohmer who also puts in tremendous amounts of dialogue in articulate mouths). So what's my two cent verdict, Jack and Jill? Here goes: `Two girls and a guy' is definitely not a great film because it tries a little too hard to be provocative and titillating and shocking, but a quite valuable one nevertheless because it breaks cliches at every turn in the dialogue, tries to promote intelligent ways as opposed to culturally pre-programmed ones of dealing with painful dilemmas, provides two very dreamy contrasting girls for guys to lust after and aspire to be worthy of in a slightly more gallant fashion than they are subjected to in the film, and creates the perfect setting for Robert Downey Jr. to be as hilarious (and also, to the sure annoyance of many like myself, as super-obnoxious) as he can.