Movies : April 2003

19 April 2003

Bend It Like Beckham

While her Sikh Punjabi family plans the wedding of her older sister, college-worthy British girl Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) has Manchester United player David Beckham and his ability to curve the ball around defenders into the goal as her hero and ambition as she spends afternoons after school in the park kicking the ball around with the guys. Just the fact that she shows no particular interest in the road to marriage like sister Pinky (Archie Panjabi) did or any of the necessary culinary skills therefor is enough to get mother (Shaheen Khan) all concerned. When an observer in the park, Juliet Paxton (Keira Knightley), turns out to be a player in a local league and introduces her to Joe the coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), what will Jess do? Quickly lie to the coach about her parents’ approval and later lie to her parents about a job at an outlet of a multinational record shop chain to cover the time away from the house. Ah, but the pesky future in-laws, an inconveniently short hairstyle on the part of Jules, and the fact that her father reads the sports pages will cause Jess difficulty. Even an ordinary romantic triangle cannot derail a fun story of cultural collision and generational misunderstanding from the perspective of (the equivalent of) high school seniors. It amused me to know that 10 years of age separated Nagra and Knightley (thanks to an online discussion at a local newspaper) and I found the performances more congenial than those in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

112 minutes.

12 April 2003

Laurel Canyon

A few faces easy on the eyes, I thought, what with Kate Beckinsale (a little slip-up like Pearl Harbor aside) and Natascha McElhone (sure, another slip-up in Solaris) and even Frances McDormand (remembering The Man Who Wasn’t There). Sam (Christian Bale) is engaged to Alex (Beckinsale) but is uneasy around her parents and petrified of what would happen if Alex were to meet his mother. So when Sam gets a first-year internship at a Los Angeles hospital, and Alex needs some time to finish her dissertation (on some obscure aspect of drosophila genomics no less), he plans to save a little money by residing in his mother’s house while she’s safely living at her beach home. The expensive cars in Mom’s driveway are the first clue that life is about to go horribly wrong for Sam. Even though he has chosen psychiatry as his specialty, he has a weak grasp on the necessity for controlling chaos. Jane (McDormand) is a successful record producer whose ex-boyfriend has moved into the beach house while the current boyfriend (Alessandro Nivola) and his band struggle to create a new album in the basement studio. There’s plenty of pot to go around, too, and at the hospital, crazy Volvo-driving second-year intern Israeli Sara (McElhone) decides that Sam is just what her heart needs. If Alex doesn’t grasp L.A. geography, well, that’s her problem. Actually, Alex is getting intrigued by the sounds and smells emanating from the basement. Say, how come Sam never corrects anyone who calls Alex his girlfriend ? Sam’s failure to set any boundaries means the plot, such as it is, is in a downward spiral that has to end in hopelessness, and the nudity is not quite what might have been desired.

104 minutes.

10 April 2003

Phone Booth

Delayed out of consideration of the red light running criminals at large in this area last October and retaining a copyright year of 2002, this compact thriller bills Katie Holmes third but unfortunately she has but two scenes on the other end of the line and some frowning to do buried in the crowd later on. Stu (Colin Farrell) is a fast-talking public relations guy striding through Times Square juggling wireless telephones with his (unpaid) assistant. Of course he is shallow. He is on his way uptown a bit to what we’re told in a strange, documentary-like prologue is the last telephone booth in Manhattan. To add to its ignominy, this phone booth still wears the colors of Bell Atlantic. Stu likes to call this waitress from Montana he’s found (Holmes) from a phone booth so that his suspicious wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell) won’t question the calls in his wireless bill. Married to this guy, why should she be suspicious about anything he says or does? Of course Stu would like to get into the panties of the waitress (but he’ll have to get in line after the guys from Abandon). Too bad for Stu, but this makes him too predictable, and when the waitress rebuffs his invitation to the nearby hotel yet again, and he answers the ringing telephone in the booth, he finds himself at the business end of a laser targeting system aimed by somebody who takes exception to his lying. The sniper (Kiefer Sutherland) doesn’t want him to hang up and as the consequences pile up (a toy robot blasted to pieces, a strip joint’s manager dead in the street, an impatient police captain with problems of his own) and Stu’s usual ploys (smooth talking, money, begging) don’t pan out, his options become increasingly limited. Farrell, whom I last saw in Minority Report, does smarmy very well (do I know anyone like that?) and the script and direction manage to keep things hopping as the action narrows to the one block. I found the presence of three prostitutes in the plot on a weekday afternoon a bit of a stretch (no wonder it’s set at least ten blocks north of Times Square) and Mitchell uncharismatic but overall, despite the wireless telephone-using couple next to me in the theater, an energizing experience.

80 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 12-Sep-2004