As
the numerous contemporary adaptations of Agatha Christie’s works demonstrate,
cinematic translations of the classic detective novel must employ a certain
amount of extraneous material to succeed on the big screen. These include a
cast of recognizable stars in small roles, period costumes and music, dazzling
sets, a glittering sense of style, and, frequently, a measure of ironic
exaggeration.
The intellectual basis of the
traditional mystery story — the baffling puzzle, the close examination of
minutiae, the games of logic and obfuscation, the cerebral methodology of the
Great Detective — generally lose their appeal in the necessary magnification
of the big screen, which tends to amplify the actions, people, and objects of
an essentially quiet and placid literary form. No wonder the most memorable detective
movies either adapt or imitate the American private-eye novel, which emphasizes
character, scene, and violent action over the ingenious problem-solving of the
English form.
The new thriller Identity deals with the inherent
difficulties of the cinematic mystery by filtering its puzzle through the
medium of the horror flick and what might be called the psychological thriller.
Like Christie’s remarkable Ten Little
Indians, which enjoyed four separate film adaptations, Identity sequesters a group of disparate characters in an isolated
location, then proceeds to knock them off one by one.
Ultimately, all of the characters
turn out to be both murderers and victims. Instead of the island of Christie’s
book, or the snowbound resort hotels, country houses, railroad cars,
gentlemen’s clubs, rural vicarages, etc. of other mysteries, Identity takes place in a sleazy motel,
one of the Bates chain, on an impossibly rainy night in Nowhere, Nevada.
The movie’s 10 assorted characters
duplicate the ill-assorted collection of the traditional mystery. Among them is
a temperamental actress (Rebecca DeMornay), her limo driver (John Cusack), a
hooker (Amanda Peet), and a cop (Ray Liotta) transporting a prisoner (Jake
Busey). The script cleverly introduces them, along with two young newlyweds, a
married couple with a child, and the motel manager, through some intricate
flashbacks within flashbacks, showing a kind of fatal coincidence linking them
all.
Peet’s lost shoe punctures a tire,
which leads to an automobile accident that seriously injures a woman, and in
turn makes Cusack attempt to drive through a flooded gully and stall his car,
which forces him to flag down another vehicle and thus encounter Peet and the
newlyweds, and so forth — ultimately compelling him and the rest of the
people to seek refuge in the motel. The movie resumes a more orthodox, linear
narrative as soon as the whole cast is assembled and someone starts murdering
them; which, of course, generates both puzzlement and panic among the steadily
diminishing group of survivors.
Quite properly, just about every
character conceals some dark secret, and several turn out to be a good deal
more sinister than they initially seem — thus, of course, creating the
possibility that any of them might be the murderer. The process of inculpation,
further, suggests something of the universality of guilt: Even the victims, in
one way or another, are criminals, and nobody is entirely innocent.
The limo driver, for example,
carries a pistol and exhibits a surprising surgical skill; the cop brutalizes
his prisoner (who soon escapes); the young wife has tricked her husband into
marrying her; and the motel manager, who betrays an inexplicable hostility
toward the hooker, keeps a corpse in the freezer.
As the rain pours down and the
bodies accumulate, the surviving characters desperately attempt to figure out
what, besides fate, brings them all to that dreary, dangerous place, what
common element connects them all. Just as they begin to realize the connection,
and thus discover a solution to all the mysteries, the bodies simply disappear
and the picture moves in a new direction, circling back to its deceptive
beginning. Even after resolving the plot in a neat, logical manner, the script
then winds through some additional and quite ingenious convolutions, providing
further surprises and new conclusions.
The ensemble cast displays just the
sort of differentiation the situation demands, so that each can simultaneously
attain a measure of individuality and suggest some hidden guilt. Cusack and
Liotta, the two strongest actors in the picture, quite naturally dominate the
action, managing to make us want to believe in them, but also hinting at the
possibility that neither should really be trusted. The duality of their
characters perfectly suits the ambiguity of the film and the essentially
implosive nature of its puzzle.
In the midst of its terror and
shock, by means of its controlled location, intense script, and clever
direction, Identity creates a most
complicated and satisfying mystery, a rare success in a tricky and delicate
form.
Identity, starring
John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall,
John C. McGinley, William Lee Scott, Jake Busey, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Rebecca
DeMornay; written by Michael Cooney; directed by James Mangold. Cinemark
Tinseltown; Hoyts Greece Ridge; Loews Webster; Pittsford Plaza Cinema; Regal
Culver Ridge; Regal Eastview; Regal Henrietta.
You
can hear George and his movie reviews on WXXI-FM 91.5 Fridays at 7:15 a.m.,
rerun on Saturdays at 11:15 a.m.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2003.
