# Guinevere (1999)

### reviewed by
Ron Small

Author: iysmall@aol.com (Ron Small)

    GUINEVERE (1999)

    Grade: B-

    Director: Audrey Welles

    Screenplay: Audrey Welles

Starring: Stephan Rea, Sarah Polley, Jean Smart, Paul Dooley, Gina Gershon, Sandra Oh, Jasmine Guy, Francis Guinan, Carrie Preston

When Robert Redford courts Kristen Scott Thomas in THE HORSE WHISPERER, the dynamics of age are conspicuously absent from the proceedings. They're ignored or accepted for the purposes of fantasy, but GUINEVERE does neither. The most refreshing bits of the film center on how and why these relationships come to fruition. It gives us some low key humor and dollops of the kind of gloomy romantic angst that those French seem to enjoy so much (yes, that is a broad generalization). But it also rather refreshingly challenges the male half of the older man\ younger woman equation. Unfortunately it loses focus when it isn't dealing with that issue.

In Tinseltown it's expected that aging hunks like Warren Beatty and Sean Connery romance women young enough to call them grandpa. Though whenever we see such a couple on the street we immediately assume that the man in question must be a damn Rockefeller and the women in question must be a gold digging tart who would gladly appear on WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE? Only in Hollywood (a mythical region where hotties like Lara Flynn Boyle throw themselves at baldies like Jack Nicholsen) is such an oddity looked upon as normal. As I type this Katie Holmes is wooing Michael Douglas (a man so old his wrinkles have wrinkles) in multiplexes everywhere. Interestingly enough after filming WONDER BOYS (in case you were curious) Douglas gets to enact the fantasy that Katie Holmes presented by going home and banging the stunning (and just of diapers) Catherine Zeta Jones. (Though I'm assuming the fantasy ended when Douglas accidentally, again my own interpretation, impregnated the mighty Zeta. Oops).

In GUINEVERE's most effective scene, an effete snob (well played by Jean Smart) confronts her 21-year-old daughter's middle aged lover: "What do you have against women your own age?" she snarls. Connie, the middle aged man in question, is photographed beneath her as if shamed by her bluntness. She doesn't let him answer; instead the woman provides a contemptuous monologue that's also painfully correct: Connie seeks out young, inexperienced women because they look up to him as a noble savant. He's like rogue artist with much wisdom to impart, a man who ever so romantically shuns the rich and lives for his art in a ratty little apartment. And he believes in them, pushing them to their full potential the way nobody else cared to do. But he wants something from them in return. Connie wants more than respect, he wants them gaze upon him with gooey eyes full of awe, and they do. He draws these pups in by giving them the adoration that they've lacked in their lives. Connie is a predator, though too sad to be malicious, he's the kind who rationalizes his faults by "helping" his prey while simultaneously hurting them.

Harper (Sarah Polley) is a rich, shy young woman, unfairly picked on by her family of elitist snobs. She isn't as out going, charming, or obedient enough to be loved by them. Harper is like a modern day Cinderella with her presumably more beautiful sister getting all the adulation. She finds the parental love she lacks in Connie (Stephan Rea), the middle aged photographer who fancies himself an artist. He treats her like a goddess (Queen Guenivere he calls her). For her, this is new; nobody has ever given her this much affection. And before long she has moved into his apartment and become his assistant as well as lover. And Connie is in ecstasy. He is a man that enjoys the act of falling in love rather than being in love and clearly this is the start of a new cycle.

The scene between Connie and Harper's mother is so psychologically captivating that I wish the film had retained more of that edge. GUINEVERE's biggest flaw is its reluctance to follow through on its most enthralling bits. However it provides some nice understated psychological moments between Connie and Harper. At one pont he somberly asks her "Whose my good little girl?" to which she replies (after a stunned glance) "Me". It's sadly touching that her need for that kind of affection puts her in the position of a helpless little child. If someone asked me if I was a good little boy (or a good little girl for that matter) I doubt that I would stick around after my stunned glance no matter how down on myself I felt. Harper not only stays but basks in his misguided love. She is his good little girl.

Sarah Polly, as Harper, is extraordinary at playing a self-conscious young woman just as effectively as she played a wild child in GO. Her face is a myriad of simplistically complex expressions; facile looks and gestures take you inside her character's mind. At other times she's less subtle, but just as effective. In scenes where Connie tends to become overly intense she breaks into giddy fits of laughter. It reminds us that for all the grown up postures she attempts that Harper is still an insecure child.

Stephan Rea is stoic, appearing like an emotionless brick of a man, too self-conscious to let any emotions bleed through his sturdy exterior. Though his guard is pummeled down in one scene where an angered Harper rapidly snaps off pictures of him, using her Nikon camera like a weapon. Rea is the kind of actor who tends to fade into the background. He isn't commanding (at least not in a typical movie star way) but understated which sometimes both helps and hurts his roles. Rea played the lead in THE CRYING GAME, where he appeared in nearly every scene with the same placated self he presents here. As such I found it difficult to get into his character (a character that lingered in the background when he should have been in the foreground) in that film. In GUINEVERE his minimalist style works more effectively because he's playing a cerebral character who expresses himself through photographs, not outward charm.

Unfortunately the screenplay lacks the edge that the film's actors bring. It feels a little too safe. Writer director Audrey Welles (she wrote the screenplay for THE TRUTH ABOUT CAT'S AND DOGS) has clearly tapped into something personal but I don't think she had the balls to take it further into darker places. She also flounders a bit in a silly denouement that feels awfully forced (and one that steals liberally from ALL THAT JAZZ). It includes a supposed sisterly connection that is formed between all of the various Guienvere's Connie has cultivated (or maybe they cultivated him), and an absurd fantasy sequence that's both poignant and, well, absurd.

At its best GUINEVRE is a thoughtful exploration of why these O'Keefe\Streiglitz relationships begin (and how they end), at its worst it's a Lifetime Television Special gloss on the obsessions of Woody Allen. I seriously doubt Michael Douglas would recommend it.

http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 Reeling (Ron Small

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