1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 84: The leading man
This movie, unfortunately, is less compelling as a story than as grist for speculation about the artists’ offscreen misdeeds. Which, in a way, is fitting, because it depicts the backstage scuzziness of a high-end theatrical production.
(The theatrical process itself is treated affectionately and accurately. This, I gather, is what critics like about the movie.)
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For nearly two decades, British-born Australian director John Duigan helmed acclaimed but smallish productions, including two longtime favorites of mine – wonderful coming-of-age movies – The Year My Voice Broke (1987) and Flirting (1991).
Alas, his relationship with Flirting’s leading actress, Thandie Newton, was … sinister.
(Allegedly. Newton denounced Duigan in several interviews, including this sobering one for Vulture.)
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Duigan gained international note for the fleshy Sirens (1994), which is about an English cleric and his wife whose mores are loosed when they visit a “liberated” artists’ colony in Australia.
Colonials 1, Mother Country 0.
The sides swap home fields but play similar games in Duigan’s The Leading Man (1996). Another colonial libertine – movie star Robin Grange (Jon Bon Jovi) – travels to London to headline a play. The movie’s opening scene shows Robin peering wolfishly across the Thames at the Houses of Parliament. This may not be enough to evoke Guy Fawkes, but soon Robin is talking of “blowing things up.” Hmm.
(I’m probably making too much of this association.)
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Anyway: Robin, with gusto, wreaks havoc on the production’s backstage intrigues.
One intrigue is conducted along typically dreary upper-middle-class British lines. Established playwright Felix (Lambert Wilson) is miserable in his affair with the ingénue lead, Hilary (Newton – at the time, allegedly, still in Duigan’s thrall). Felix spends evenings in the flat that Hilary shares with other young strugglers and returns late to his wife, Elena (Anna Galienna), for tongue-lashings.
Robin sizes things up and makes Felix an indecent proposal. Out of the goodness of his heart, he’ll seduce Elena: to take her off Felix’s hands, or at least to reduce her moral advantage over Felix.
So far, this is like an Iris Murdoch novel (A Fairly Honourable Defeat, perhaps). The difference is that the movie appears to side with the scheming Robin. It’s as if, in Othello, the patsy Roderigo were the tragic victim, Desdemona guilty, Iago worth cheering for.
This moral repulsiveness swamps whatever craftsmanship, style, and comedy the movie offers – which are not inconsiderable.
The movie is still better than what passes for urbane adult drama nowadays: e.g., The Undoing, with Duigan’s former actors, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.
And so it bolsters my claim for 1996.
P.S. Newton went on to become a star. Duigan went on to make the terrible, pointless Lawn Dogs.
Bon Jovi emerged untarnished.
(The theatrical process itself is treated affectionately and accurately. This, I gather, is what critics like about the movie.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
For nearly two decades, British-born Australian director John Duigan helmed acclaimed but smallish productions, including two longtime favorites of mine – wonderful coming-of-age movies – The Year My Voice Broke (1987) and Flirting (1991).
Alas, his relationship with Flirting’s leading actress, Thandie Newton, was … sinister.
(Allegedly. Newton denounced Duigan in several interviews, including this sobering one for Vulture.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Duigan gained international note for the fleshy Sirens (1994), which is about an English cleric and his wife whose mores are loosed when they visit a “liberated” artists’ colony in Australia.
Colonials 1, Mother Country 0.
The sides swap home fields but play similar games in Duigan’s The Leading Man (1996). Another colonial libertine – movie star Robin Grange (Jon Bon Jovi) – travels to London to headline a play. The movie’s opening scene shows Robin peering wolfishly across the Thames at the Houses of Parliament. This may not be enough to evoke Guy Fawkes, but soon Robin is talking of “blowing things up.” Hmm.
(I’m probably making too much of this association.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Anyway: Robin, with gusto, wreaks havoc on the production’s backstage intrigues.
One intrigue is conducted along typically dreary upper-middle-class British lines. Established playwright Felix (Lambert Wilson) is miserable in his affair with the ingénue lead, Hilary (Newton – at the time, allegedly, still in Duigan’s thrall). Felix spends evenings in the flat that Hilary shares with other young strugglers and returns late to his wife, Elena (Anna Galienna), for tongue-lashings.
Robin sizes things up and makes Felix an indecent proposal. Out of the goodness of his heart, he’ll seduce Elena: to take her off Felix’s hands, or at least to reduce her moral advantage over Felix.
So far, this is like an Iris Murdoch novel (A Fairly Honourable Defeat, perhaps). The difference is that the movie appears to side with the scheming Robin. It’s as if, in Othello, the patsy Roderigo were the tragic victim, Desdemona guilty, Iago worth cheering for.
This moral repulsiveness swamps whatever craftsmanship, style, and comedy the movie offers – which are not inconsiderable.
The movie is still better than what passes for urbane adult drama nowadays: e.g., The Undoing, with Duigan’s former actors, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.
And so it bolsters my claim for 1996.
P.S. Newton went on to become a star. Duigan went on to make the terrible, pointless Lawn Dogs.
Bon Jovi emerged untarnished.
