November 7, 2007
David Cronenberg’s post 90s films have tended less towards introspective horror sci-fi and more towards thoughtful character study, and of these mostly successful attempts at a change of direction, Spider (2002) was particularly outstanding. With this hideous misfire though, the Canadian director comes close to virtually destroying any credibility that his 30 year career has thus far established.
Ostensibly the story of how a sensitive nurse (played by Naomi Watts) comes head to head with the Russian mafia, the film is as random as it sounds and just about as ridiculous. Watts delivers babies that remind her of the one she miscarried after her last boyfriend left her and indirectly sent her back to her Mum’s terraced house. Mum is Irish and played by Sinead Cusack and at one point this poor talented actress actually has to say “my little Russian doll”. Believe it or not, this is one of the least offensive of the clichés that the film has to offer. Anyway our Naomi (who seems to be relishing her English roots by uttering such lines as “you bastards murdered her” with a gleeful and clearly studied classical Anglo-Saxon accent) comes to love and care for a baby whose mother died giving birth, leaving behind a diary which, when opened, reveals that she was smacked-up, prostituted out and raped by the Russian mob.
Enough! This aspect of the plot is, to say the least, mindlessly sentimental, and the other half of it, the part involving Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel as a pair of Russian gangsters (Mortensen and Cassel … an American and a Frenchman … riiight) is woefully dull and inauthentic; the frustrated homosexual element is fudged and vague. At one point they go to a mob brothel where Mortensen is forced to have sex with one of the girls in front of Cassel to “prove he is not a queer” and can therefore be approved into Cassel’s gangster family (what he is actually being called upon to do is excite Cassel, who wants to have sex with him but cannot admit it). The scene is about as cod as you can get – the recent EastEnders plotline about a Russian girl who worked in a lap dancing club in Dartford and gave her baby to Dot Cotton to look after handled this kind of material better.
The worst judgement on Cronenberg’s part is the use of the dead Russian girl’s diary being read over various scenes in voice-over. Line after line of tired cliché is trumpeted out in a shamelessly whimsical fashion (“there were no windows”; “they drugged me with heroin”; “I thought I would have a good life here where I would be paid to sing”) whilst no attempt is made to understand or resolve the problem of the sex trade. He ought to be ashamed of himself, especially with such great films as Lukas Moodyson’s Lilya 4-Ever and Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things (which Steve Knight, who wrote this, also scripted) to give him some guidance on how to put stories like this on screen. Come to think of it, perhaps Cronenberg did watch these films and lazily went for a one-dimensional recreation, as this often feels like a really bad version of the two put together.
As for the ridiculous scene in which Mortensen has to fend off a couple of thugs in the nude (in a Finsbury bath house), all I can say about it is that Cronenberg’s attempt to create a fusion of violence and kinkyness a la Casino Royale is about as successful as the original 1967 version of that film. What could possibly top this mind bogglingly awful resumé of embarrassment? A film about Romanian weightlifters who travel to LA to take part in the 1984 Olympics perhaps? The twist could be that they clash with some bad boys from South Central, and only a pretty nurse from Skid Row can defuse the war about to erupt! Eeeek.
Ostensibly the story of how a sensitive nurse (played by Naomi Watts) comes head to head with the Russian mafia, the film is as random as it sounds and just about as ridiculous. Watts delivers babies that remind her of the one she miscarried after her last boyfriend left her and indirectly sent her back to her Mum’s terraced house. Mum is Irish and played by Sinead Cusack and at one point this poor talented actress actually has to say “my little Russian doll”. Believe it or not, this is one of the least offensive of the clichés that the film has to offer. Anyway our Naomi (who seems to be relishing her English roots by uttering such lines as “you bastards murdered her” with a gleeful and clearly studied classical Anglo-Saxon accent) comes to love and care for a baby whose mother died giving birth, leaving behind a diary which, when opened, reveals that she was smacked-up, prostituted out and raped by the Russian mob.
Enough! This aspect of the plot is, to say the least, mindlessly sentimental, and the other half of it, the part involving Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel as a pair of Russian gangsters (Mortensen and Cassel … an American and a Frenchman … riiight) is woefully dull and inauthentic; the frustrated homosexual element is fudged and vague. At one point they go to a mob brothel where Mortensen is forced to have sex with one of the girls in front of Cassel to “prove he is not a queer” and can therefore be approved into Cassel’s gangster family (what he is actually being called upon to do is excite Cassel, who wants to have sex with him but cannot admit it). The scene is about as cod as you can get – the recent EastEnders plotline about a Russian girl who worked in a lap dancing club in Dartford and gave her baby to Dot Cotton to look after handled this kind of material better.
The worst judgement on Cronenberg’s part is the use of the dead Russian girl’s diary being read over various scenes in voice-over. Line after line of tired cliché is trumpeted out in a shamelessly whimsical fashion (“there were no windows”; “they drugged me with heroin”; “I thought I would have a good life here where I would be paid to sing”) whilst no attempt is made to understand or resolve the problem of the sex trade. He ought to be ashamed of himself, especially with such great films as Lukas Moodyson’s Lilya 4-Ever and Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things (which Steve Knight, who wrote this, also scripted) to give him some guidance on how to put stories like this on screen. Come to think of it, perhaps Cronenberg did watch these films and lazily went for a one-dimensional recreation, as this often feels like a really bad version of the two put together.
As for the ridiculous scene in which Mortensen has to fend off a couple of thugs in the nude (in a Finsbury bath house), all I can say about it is that Cronenberg’s attempt to create a fusion of violence and kinkyness a la Casino Royale is about as successful as the original 1967 version of that film. What could possibly top this mind bogglingly awful resumé of embarrassment? A film about Romanian weightlifters who travel to LA to take part in the 1984 Olympics perhaps? The twist could be that they clash with some bad boys from South Central, and only a pretty nurse from Skid Row can defuse the war about to erupt! Eeeek.