If nothing else, Jonathan Demme’s new
movie, The Truth About Charlie,
demonstrates a familiar and sometimes entertaining combination of the
courageous and the foolhardy — topped off, unfortunately, with the worst sort
of Hollywoodthink. Both the courage and the foolishness derive from the fact
that the picture is a remake of Stanley Donen’s 1963 comedy thriller Charade, which starred Cary Grant and
Audrey Hepburn, supported by a cast that included Walter Matthau, James Coburn,
and George Kennedy. Surely only someone blessed not only with both talent and
confidence, but also with, perhaps, more guts than brains, would attempt to
recapture the airy charm of that flick. Equally surely, only someone with a
traditional Hollywood mindset (perhaps pressured by the money people) would
choose Mark Wahlberg as a leading man under any circumstances, let alone one in
which he must toil in Grant’s long shadow.
Since
the script required the work of four (credited) screenwriters, including the
director himself, the process of repeating the past, even given the solid
foundation of a previous success, apparently presented more problems than one
would imagine. However, this movie generally follows the story of Charade, adding a good deal more
violence in the contemporary mode, subtracting much of the wit and fun, and
framing the mixture with enough showy camera technique to make three
experimental films (with a lively documentary left over). It updates the 1950s
flavor of its predecessor without making much more sense of its complicated and
artificial materials. And though well stocked with beatings, shootings,
automobile collisions, and a sufficiency of blood, the remake retains its
paradoxical lightheartedness.
Thandie
Newton plays Regina Lambert, a rich young woman who returns from a vacation in
Martinique to find her husband, Charles, missing; her enormous apartment
totally gutted; and her bank account empty. The police, who suspect her of some
complicity, inform her that her husband is dead. They also tell her that,
though she believed him to be an art dealer, Charles was apparently some sort
of international crook, with half a dozen aliases and as many passports. A Mr.
Bartholomew (Tim Robbins), an official from the United States embassy, then
tells her that, in fact, Charlie was involved in dangerous undercover work for
an organization called the Office of Defense Cooperation. The reason for his
murder appears to be the several million dollars he stole from the government
while on a secret mission. As it turns out, a whole batch of people — the
cops, the ODC, and a trio of thugs (Charlie’s former colleagues) —all want to
get their hands on the cash, and they all believe Regina knows how to find it.
Although
not at all grief stricken — she was intending to divorce her husband —
Regina feels she must find the money, the murderer, and Charlie’s real
identity. The only person who believes she’s innocent is Joshua Peters
(Wahlberg), a helpful young man she initially met in Martinique and later,
again, in Paris. The movie soon resolves itself into a series of pursuits and
flights, as Regina and Joshua track down clues and escape the thugs,
interrupted by fist fights and an occasional embrace. He defends her from
attackers and assists her in her quest for the money and the solution to the
mystery, but Joshua himself displays a disturbing, shifting identity, changing
his story, his past, and his name as Regina edges closer to the truth.
Thrillers
frequently revolve around the problem of identity, so the ever-changing names,
the constantly adjusted history, the different explanations of Charlie’s work
and life all conform to the traditional patterns of the genre. Regina’s
solution of the mystery quite naturally brings her to an understanding of the
world and herself, a process of maturation and initiation, an awareness of the
shifting and ambiguous nature of reality, of how little she knows of the truth.
At the same time, the movie never really takes itself seriously enough to
become ponderous and lugubrious, thus retaining some of the lightness and grace
of the original.
Demme
maintains the notion of the ambiguity of reality, as well as a certain
liveliness, through the film’s remarkably dynamic cinematography. The camera
never rests. It’s constantly changing focus and angle, moving rapidly back and
forth in conversations from tight close-up to tight close-up, providing oblique
points of view or simply tilting to one side or another, soaring in the air for
overhead shots, frequently circling dizzyingly around the central couple. In
addition, the director varies film speed from fast to slow motion, sometimes
combining the two in some jumpy panoramas, and employing the beauty of Paris
for innumerable sequences of rapid and nervous montage. When he needs to
underline the Parisian atmosphere or remind us that the whole fluffy business,
despite appearances, is really a romantic comedy, he brings in the venerable
and wonderful Charles Aznavour to sing one of his love songs.
The
greatest problem in the film, not surprisingly, lies with Wahlberg, whose
presence is so negligible he barely casts a shadow. Though he presumably
appears in the movie in order to attract a younger audience than the one that
enjoyed Cary Grant, he expresses no particular emotion, delivers his lines
without a scintilla of wit, and moves with no discernible grace. Aside from the
obligatory moment when he takes his shirt off to display his muscular torso, he
hardly provides an appropriate match for the lovely Thandie Newton. His short,
stocky body seems at its most ridiculous when he slaps on a beret, apparently
to remind us that he is a suave, romantic boulevardier. The poor little guy
actually looks something like a French fire hydrant.
The
Truth About Charlie, starring Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins,
Joong-Hoon Park, Ted Levine, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Christine Boisson, Stephen
Dillane, Simon Abkarian, Frédérique Meininger, Charles Aznavour, Anna Karina,
Magali Noël, Sakina Jaffrey, Agnes Varda, Saïan Supa Crew; based on the motion
picture Charade, screenplay by Peter
Stone; screenplay by Jonathan Demme, Steve Schmidt, Peter Joshua, and Jessica
Bendinger. Regal Eastview; Regal Henrietta.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2002.
