# Tempest (1982)

### reviewed by
Ron SmalL

TEMPEST (1982) Grade: B- Director: Paul Mazursky Screenplay: Leon Capetanos, Paul Mazursky Starring: John Cassevtes, Susan Sarandon, Gena Rowlands, Raul Julia, Molly Ringwald, Sam Robards, Vittorio Gassman Tranquil serenity encapsulates an isolated Greek Island. The isle is so resplendent, so picturesque it could be interpreted as the most astute visual poetry, a luminous, naturalistic realization of utopia. Uneasiness is detected amidst the harmony. It's plastered all over Cassevetes' sullen visage. The man mutters "Come on now, show me the magic," like a desperate old coot. He glares up into the skies, with much trepidation, as if inquiring from the gods above. They respond to his query. Darkened clouds, like so much black smoke, slowly confine the blissful sunshine. Winds pick up, whooshing forth with great frenzy. Lightning strikes, not hokey movie lightning, this lightning looks authentic, and this moment feels authentic. Director Paul Mazursky has pulled off a harrowing sequence of nature gone awry. He has effectively filmed what Shakespeare characterized in his play TEMPEST, which Mazursky's TEMPEST is a modernized version of. The problem is, this scene doesn't belong in the film. It's out of place, a sorcerous event plunked down in a story that opens as an acerbic, subtly dramatic meditation on a mid-life crisis. Mazursky introduces us to Philip (Cassevetes), his wife, an aging actress (puffy haired Gena Rowlands, looking like she just walked out of a 40's film noir), and a pixyish daughter (Molly Ringwald), all living in a modernist apartment in Manhattan. Philip is unhappy in his seemingly immaculate life. At first we are only moderately aware of this. He discontentedly yanks a gray hair off his chest while carrying on a conversation with his wife who resides in the adjacent room. Later we experience more of his malaise. In one of the film's most surreal moments he envisions himself slowly diving off a building while he looks on. Actor\director John Cassevestes was a good choice for the role. Cassevetes has a handsome, dour face, with dead eyes, a drooping nose and wild tussled hair. He not only looks like a doomed man, but like a man who knows he's doomed. Philip trudges into his apartment as his wife is entertaining guests, a group of pompous actors\directors\producer's whom she will be working with. He seems despondent, possibly inebriated. He asks one of the guests (played by Mazursky) to dance with him. Cassevetes relishes the scene; he plays it with a mock joy so out of place it's downright intimidating. "Sing to me!" He bellows to the befuddled fellow. Mazursky begins to sing as the two men dance arm in arm. The scene reminded me of the only effective sequence in the recent MOD SQUAD movie, were the baddie Michael Lerner waltzes with Omar Epps as a subtle form of dissuasion. It's evident that Cassevetes suspects the man of foul play with his wife, or just doesn't like the pretentious fool. He goes from gibe playfulness to corrosive anger, cumulating into a nervous breakdown in front of everyone. These early scenes are beautifully realized. Mazursky knows how to comically strip away falseness and get to the core of raw emotion. The sequence is played gaudily by a capricious Cassevetes, who widens his dark eyes in complete lunacy. The character undergoes a conversion not unlike Kevin Spacey in AMERICAN BEAUTY. He quits his job and begins behaving like an aimless wacko. Philip drives his wife into the arms of another man, his own boss, a brazen narcissist, played hysterically by Alfonso Alonzo. His daughter takes his side when he resolves to vacation in Greece. Upon arriving they instantly encounter a beautiful traveler (Susan Sarandon), with the ability to sing HAVA NAGILAH in three different languages. Sarandon is a comely vision, impeccably tan, with short, amber curled hair. She radiates more pure carnality in TEMPEST then she has since the orange scene in ATLANTIC CITY. She's also grown as an actress. In ATLANTIC CITY she came across as completely fallacious, just another blank pretty face. Here she brings a light sarcasm as well as benevolent warmth to her role. Sarandon and Cassevetes have a prodigiously mannered chemistry. He peers at her warmly, and she returns his stares with big, inquisitive eyes, as if she were trying to get to the core of this man, and find out what makes him tick. Molly Ringwald is less successful. This is her first major role and it shows. She comes equipped with an early 80's trendy, chic teenage girl brattiness (the new 90's trend being that of witty self-awareness), and perpetual bed head. Sarandon falls for Cassevestes and they relocate, with his daughter to the aforementioned Greek isle. Only one other inhabitant resides on the island, a buffoonish Spaniard, played with maximum jubilation by Raul Julia (with a thick moustache to match his equally thick accent). So far many of Mazursky's gambits work. He has devised a whimsically messy plot (with dark undertones) of a man on a mission to self-discovery. At a little more than one hour in to this thing, Mazursky tries for an additional affectivity. His heightened realism turns into surrealism. A scene in which Raul Julia performs a mock burlesque show with a bunch of goats as his back up doesn't belong here, but it is unsuccessfully included. Then, later the aforementioned, "show me the magic" moment. This seems piled on in order for Mazursky to justify his film as a Shakespeare adaptation. Mazursky is more adept at handling the paces of real life, not fantasy. The island scenes begin to feel somewhat forced and awkward, like a bad concoction of Fellini at his most indulgent and a quirky episode of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Occasionally, Mazursky does manage to capture the magic he's aiming for, like in a luminously shot scene in which Molly Ringwald and Sam Robards meet underwater. Visuals have never usually been Mazursky's strong suit. In TEMPEST, he changes that. The images of the island are so expansively exquisite one could view most of the picture with the sound off and still enjoy it. Mazursky's screenplays have always been a little messy, comparative to the lives he was portraying; the hustle and bustle of quirky artists in NEXT STOP GREENWICH VILLAGE, the middle class sexual moors in BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE. Here he has attempted something disparate, a sprawling epic that never reaches a destination. The messy naturalism (punctuated by messy surrealism) is refreshing in early scenes but at two and half-hours it becomes a bit tedious. If only he had focused his story more tightly and done away with the Shakespeare-inspired moments, he could have had a minor classic instead of a near miss.

http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 (Ron's Movie Reviews)

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