| 14 February 2012
SKIP The Rum Diary,Johnny Depp’s second foray into the mind of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, from writer/director Bruce Robinson. I have always loved Hunter S. Thompson’s work - I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 when I was in high school and I was instantly hooked, gobbling up Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas and Hell’s Angels in succession. But the film versions of Thompson’s work have always been disappointing. 1980’s Where the Buffalo Roam was a disjointed mess, with a badly miscast Bill Murray as Thompson; 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had Depp play “Raoul Duke,” a Thompson pseudonym made famous in Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoons (where it probably should have remained). Depp seemed to capture a more realistic portrayal of Thompson, but that doesn’t mean it was fun to watch - I came to the conclusion, at that point, that Thompson’s persona and writing just don’t make for good films. This picture did nothing to dissuade me of that belief.
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For the record, The Rum Diary is based on Thompson’s novel, not one of his essay collections, but the lead character Paul Kemp (Depp), a journalist working in Puerto Rico in the early 1960s is unmistakeably an early incarnation of Thompson himself. Consequently, this is Thompson fueled by alcohol and a Catcher In The Rye styled cynical malaise, not the ‘70s gonzo icon gobbling LSD and uppers. Either way, the portrayal feels all too self-indulgent. I like Hunter S. Thompson too, but unlike Johnny Depp I’m not going to make you pay $7.50 to watch me wander around the screen for 90 minutes looking disinterested so you can feel how “cool” I am.
The novel The Rum Diary was published in 1998, although it was written many years before and shelved. The story feels stale, and the characters are not memorable. Richard Jenkins plays a stick-up-his-behind editor who incurs Kemp’s wrath for no apparent reason, Amber Heard is present as one-dimensional WASPy window dressing, Aaron Eckhardt is a nominal villain, a land-developer willing to pay people off.
Ultimately, however, this picture suffers most because Thompson’s work was never about linear storytelling, or even just storytelling. Reading Hunter S. Thompson was about the experience. Trying to make it into a movie is like someone who was a mile from the stage at Woodstock holding a hand held tape recorder trying to convince you that listening to the garbled sounds on tape will somehow convey the experience to you. In his masterpieces, Thompson was able to convey that atmosphere and transport his readers to that time and place. On screen, it’s all just white noise.
SEE Take Shelter, the psychological drama from writer/director Jeff Nichols. I’ll be up front here and tell you I absolutely agonized over what review to give this film, finally settling on telling you to watch it while listing all the reasons you may wind up disliking it.
In Take Shelter, we meet Curtis (Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Shannon). He is a regular guy with a wife (The Help’s Jessica Chastain) and a hearing impaired daughter (Tova Stewart) who is being plagued by creepy apocalyptic dreams that start to spill over into his conscious mind in the form of hallucinations. Curtis fears he’s losing his mind - his mother (Kathy Baker) was institutionalized for mental illness when he was a kid. His greatest fear is that he’s losing his family. As we watch Curtis struggle not to give in to his fears, a battle he loses as he begins acting increasingly erratically and building a storm shelter in his back yard, we realize that he represents what happens when you lose your belief in your ability to keep the people you love most safe. If Curtis sounds at all reminiscent of Boardwalk Empire’s Agent Van Alden, trust me, he’s not. Gone here is the religious fervor, the obsession with punishment, and Van Alden’s callous stoicism in the face of self-righteousness.
Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon
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Take Shelter seeks to create an overall sense of foreboding, but occasionally achieves only an overall dreary atmosphere instead. The slow pacing picks up after the first 20 minutes, but on the whole this film is going to feel too slow for a lot of people and at just over 2 hours it is way too long. As a result, Take Shelter also fails to create enough suspense which hinders its ability to make a full emotional impact. Through some subtle and not too subtle imagery, the film works effectively as a post 9/11 allegory of the paranoia, divisiveness and self-destructive tendencies that prevailed in the aftermath of that tragedy, both by individuals and the country as a whole.
If you’ve read any buzz about this picture before seeing it, you’ve probably seen Michael Shannon’s name mentioned as an Oscar snub, and while his performance is strong, I felt the best performance in the film is delivered by Jessica Chastain, who creates a sensitive, quietly strong and realistic character. Without her Samantha, we have no reason to care about Curtis, and to me, this is the definition of a great supporting actress performance. That said, Shannon is outstanding at presenting a very slow devolution to his character, the one part of this film where the slow pacing works best, giving its lead actor plenty of time to create a three dimensional portrait.
Set in the midwest, Take Shelter takes full advantage and makes good use of its expansive landscapes - what you think of when you hear something called “God’s country.” David Wingo’s score, however, was uneven for me, going a little too creepy horror film in a movie that clearly isn’t one, and an unnecessarily ambiguous ending left me feeling that Nichols didn’t trust his own story enough to let it play out without a gimmick.
Take Shelter was a good film, with GREAT performances, but had a couple of flaws that will prove fatal for some moviegoers. If, however, you’re not scared off by a slow developing story and get juiced from seeing strong, nuanced acting, this is a film you can enjoy.
