What was the last film you watched?

[Mel O'Drama]

Cadillac Man (1990)

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If memory serves, this was a recommendation from Prime after I added Falling Down to my watch list. I haven't seen the latter, but from its reputation I would say it's a logical pairing, with both having that "day from hell" thing going on.

Curiously, according to Amazon's description this is set "in 1970s New York". I'm not sure where they pulled this from, since there is no period setting (at least, not by the standards of the day. In 2026 it's something of a time capsule).

It would be a stretch to describe myself as a big fan of Robin Williams, but this feels like the perfect vehicle (pun not entirely attended) for him. He's surrounded by actors who can match his energy while (somewhat paradoxically) reining him in. There are occasionally some big performances, but there's a naturalism which grounds it. It helps that New York is a character, as it's a place where some of the larger than life characters feel perfectly at home and, if anything, expected.

Tim Robbins - as I've no doubt mentioned before - I always conflated during this era with Bruce Greenwood, Sam Neill and probably another actor or two. His character, Larry, spends the most time with Wiliams's Joey. At times I found myself a little irritated with how easily Joey took control of the situation and influenced Larry and, despite it being established that Joey is a convincing salesman first and foremost, feel it could have been sold better in this particular situation. Still, the screen chemistry is good, and the negotiation scenes where Joey, gun pressed between his shoulder blades, manically relays the hostage taker's message to "go away" are hilarious. I especially enjoyed the little detail of him giving the "time out" signal to them as the pair shuffles backwards into the showroom.

The rest of the cast is pretty solid with everyone being the right level of sleazy, pushy, weary or demanding. Lauren Tom was a standout as the dim sum waitress (it's a little mind-blowing that she can be so funny here, while her thankless Friends role a few years later was written so blandly. At least she was better serviced in Futurama). Inexplicably, I instantly recognised Fran Dresher's name from The Nanny (it must have gone in by osmosis from spending so much time around these parts), and I was curious to get my first look at her, hoping it might pull me towards a series I haven't watched. I did check out a few clips afterwards, but only to see if she used the same voice there which would dash any hope of me watching. Funny how Lauren and Fran use a similar register, but the timbre of one works for me while the other grates like a gratey thing.

I didn't recognise Elaine Stritch as the widow in the opening scene. In fairness, she did wear a dark veil for most of her scene.

I appreciated the film's early scenes, which spent a great deal of time establishing its characters, dynamics and settings, just following Joey round as he went about his weekend. It would have been great (if impossible) to watch this without knowing a thing about the film's premise, because there was really no sense of where it was going for the first third of the film. This groundwork really paid off when it hit the fan. I also applauded the genuine sense of jeopardy. It felt as though anything could happen, and the ending could go several ways.

Outrageous as the whole thing seems, this is a film that can really only work when played by people who are not only funny but also good dramatic actors. And work it does.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Then She Found Me (2007)

It's taken me quite some time to get round to watching this one. The British poster image of Helen Hunt and Colin Firth facing one another in profile and touching foreheads is somehow embedded in my memory (presumably from seeing it on the side of buses back in the day), and it just says "generic romcom". I prefer the poster above, which I don't recognise. At least it alludes to the meaning behind the title, whereas the other poster suggests a couple who were lucky to find one another (still true of the plot, but also the more generic part).

After the film, I read that Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler and Colin Firth had all worked for minimum pay to help Helen Hunt complete this passion project, which raised the film in my esteem. Even before that I'd thought it was charming and quite touching.

All performances are great, but it possibly goes without saying that Helen Hunt is the best thing in this. She's got such class and has that rare gift of getting the viewer to feel what her character is feeling (which I suppose is ultimately the aim of any acting performance, even though it happens so rarely). It's probably a little sledgehammer to measure how good she is by how well she cries, but my god - the way those real tears flow when she lets loose. I think she only has one big crying scene here, but she always looks as though she's about to cry anyway, with those furrowed eyelids concealing so much pain (even though she's in the enviable position of choosing between Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth). Helen performs double duty here, since the film is her directorial debut, and it looks perfectly fine to my eyes.

Colin Firth plays the stressed-out abandoned single parent role that usually wins awards for actresses. His intensity at times is almost frightening. And Matthew Broderick does the adorable-but-frustrating man-child thing so well.

How intriguing to realise on watching the end titles that Salman Rushdie had played the doctor. They also mentioned that Tim Robbins had played himself (presumably one of the guests on Midler's character's talk show) which means I've unintentionally watched him in two films on two consecutive evenings.

The plot is very soapy indeed, with each twist soapier than the last. It's carried by the conviction of the performances and dialogue, though, and these are so well executed that there were two or three which took me by surprise even though I should have seen them coming from a mile away. One of them (the last scene to take place in a hospital setting) even had me reflecting on how impressive it was that I'd been enjoying the dynamics so much that I hadn't even considered the outcome, obvious as it was to anyone familiar with the conventions of soapy drama.