Interiors
Directed by: Woody Allen



I love James L. Brooks. I absolutely love him. I need to see 'Terms of Endearment' again to know for sure, but I absolutely love 'Broadcast News', 'As Good As It Gets', and 'Spanglish'.

And as much as I would like to say otherwise, in this film, Brooks blows it. I really wanted to like this movie, and I did like elements of it, and parts of it, but in the end, Brooks actually does what his critics so wrongly accuse him of in other movies; that is, he creates characters who's overbaringness overshadows their humanity.

Tea Leoni's character in 'Spanglish' is usually brought up as a point of what was wrong with the film by it's critics. With the possible exception of a scene or two, I disagree. Yes, she's exaggerated, but Brook's style is very dramatic, very theatrical, and I don't feel as if she exceeded those bounds. In this film, take what she is, double it, and then give it to every character in the film.

Sorry, that's too much. Brook's humor and insight depends on eccentric characters and behavior, true, but if they lose their humanity, they don't work. In this case, the characters lose their humanity far too often. Because of that, they just end up being grating.

This film is far from a total loss. It does manage to do a pretty good humorous savaging of hollywood shallowness, poke some fun at actors and the movie industry, and has several levels of irony, sometimes unintentional. I found it hilarious that the dream project of one character is a remake of 'Mr. Deeds Goes To Town', which she loves so much because it won't be like all that other hollywood crap. In light of the Sandler film 'Mr. Deeds', that's so ironic it hurts.

Also, Nick Nolte's character is usually pretty good. He's at least coming from a good place. He's well acted, and overblown less then some of the other characters. He was always fun to watch. The film also is generally funny, most jokes get a laugh out of you. You just wish you cared a little more about the laughs.

Ironically, this film jokes a lot about the hollywood scene selling out what it knows is good for percieved commercial gain. What is really ironic, is apparently, from what I've read, this film originally had a bunch of music numbers it it, it was a musical of sorts, but the test audiences HATED the music scenes, so they were cut. The irony is so thick you could butter toast with it.

Perhaps it would have worked with the musical numbers. The overblown tone might have seemed appropriate if that had been the case. As it goes, it just creates more problems by making the editing choppy, and the score awkward. It was obvious when they were originally going to break into song, and when it is cut, it's very odd.

This film is funny enough, and it's problems are interesting enough, I almost want to reccomend it. It's a facinating film to watch, and it's problems are actually quite interesting to think about.

I'd love to see a 'director's cut' of this film. It might be quite good. But in this form, it's a tragic misfire.