# Mumford (1999)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    MUMFORD
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  *** 1/2

Dr. Mumford (Loren Dean) is a psychologist with a difference in MUMFORD, the latest cinematic treasure from writer/director Lawrence Kasdan (THE BIG CHILL and GRAND CANYON).

As an inviting enigma, Dean gives a deceptively seductive performance. He almost hypnotizes the audience with his smooth, blank slate of a face. Dr. Mumford, a world-class listener, possesses such subdued charm that people are compelled to tell him their most hidden secrets, something it's obvious the doc must have a few of himself.

In town for less than 5 months, he's already got more patients than the other two local shrinks combined. Ridiculed by one of the town's sophisticates as "Mayberry, RFD," the place where the doctor has moved has (coincidentally?) been called Mumford since 1813.

Dr. Mumford listens stoically to some patients but cuts others' time short if he thinks they're wasting his time. In a story that isn't in any hurry to get anywhere, the movie charms with its cornucopia of well-written and superlatively acted characters. One of the film's delights is that you haven't any idea where it is headed. Its one mystery is fairly obvious. Full of wry humor that produces a host of small laughs and constant grins, the script is perhaps its biggest star. ("The only problem I had with degenerate, self-destructive behavior is that I couldn't get enough of it.")

>From bars to hardware stores, people pull Dr. Mumford over to seek out his advice and to bare their souls. The movie has an almost magical aspect to it that you can't quite put your finger on. Lit by cinematographer Ericson Core to look like a Norman Rockwell painting, the town of Mumford manages to look appealing even though it conceals a hotbed of neuroses.

One of his patients is a waif, who has an unhealthy addiction to glamour magazines. Lying on his coach, cuddling Bazaar and Elle in her arms, she confesses, "I want to live in the world that these people are in."

Sofie Crisp (Hope Davis), his prize patient, suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Davis gives a convincing performance as someone so tired that she can barely move. With pale, translucent skin, she appears so fragile that her bones might be in danger of disintegration. "You may lie down," the doctor advises her on her first visit to his office. "Most people do." "I'd better not," she replies as if exhausted by speaking. "I'd fall right asleep. Besides, it's probably too early for me to start sleeping with you."

As obsessive shopper Althea Brockett, Mary McDonnell (DANCES WITH WOLVES) plays a woman who never met a catalog she didn't love. Especially fond of two-named stores (Williams-Sonoma, Neiman Marcus, ....), she has closets overflowing with the loot that she's bought but hasn't unboxed. Her husband (Ted Danson) is an investment banker who enjoys the high life. "No one ever said on his death bed, 'I treated myself too well,'" he explains to Dr. Mumford, as he blows the smoke from his large, hotdog-sized cigar into a brandy stifter big enough for a small aquarium.

The town's Rock of Gibraltar, Lily (Alfre Woodard), owns the local coffee shop and rents a room to Dr. Mumford. She spends her evenings watching television shows like "20/20." ("It's shocking!" she tells the doctor about the latest investigative report on 20/20. "The government is wasteful. You heard it here first.")

In a likable and wonderfully naive turn, Jason Lee (CHASING AMY) is Skip Skiperton, the town's young success story, as the founder of Panda Modems. Skip's a lonely guy with a serious case of insecurity for a multibillionaire. He complains that his company makes "23% of the world's modems, but I can't connect with women." He pays the doc to play ball with him, while he discusses his many anxieties.

In a movie filled with gems, it's hard to pick out a favorite. The most unusual, however, is the telling of his dreams by the pharmacist (Pruitt Taylor Vince). He dreams in black and white and his characters are lifted straight out of old dime store paperbacks - the types populated with women with large bosoms and grease-monkey men. Just the sort that a kid might sneak off to a shed to read, lest he be caught by his parents and the sort that might forever be trapped in an adult's subconscious.

MUMFORD runs a fast 1:36. It is rated R for sex-related images, language and drug content. It is a good-spirited film that would be fine for teenagers.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com

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