Theres Something About Mary
By Ervell E.
Menezes
THERES so much I heard about
Theres Something About Mary that I was quite
disappointed after seeing the film. But then I
hadnt seen Dumb and Dumber by the Farrelly Brothers
Peter and Bob so I was in no position to surmise what the
fare might be. The title for one thing, is catchy.
The duet playing the music is also
cute and the line goes Theres something about Mary
that you dont know. It is like the Greek chorus and
comments on the film but the humour is weak. At least not
my type of humour. It is far too slapstick and at times
base and even vulgar. Its in the Jim Carrey mould
and Ben Stiller who plays Ted, the born loser who is
trying to revive his romance for his high school date,
could well emulate Carrey who by now has realised that he
must move on to something more plausible and hence his
induction in The Truman Show.
Yes, comely Cameron Diaz
is Mary but not all that she does is funny. Or for that
matter romantic. And shuttling between Matt Dillon and
Ben Stiller is like being between the devil and the deep
sea. Ive seen Matt Dillon in a film with Gene
Hackman and quite a good job he did then. But if
hes going to ham about it senseless comedies like
this hes likely to ruin a promising career.
"Six Days, Seven
Nights" is much better. In fact it is slotted as the
Valentine Day release even though the romance is an
April-November type. After all you cant expect an
ageing Harrison Ford to play a young lover. But the
subject, one of being stranded on a desert island with a
woman , must have been the day-dream of many a youth.
Hollywood too has cashed in on it Blue Legoon (Brooke
Shields and Christopher Atkins) and Castaway (Oliver
Reed) readily come to mind.
Comedy has to take
precedence over romance. So, when magazine editor Robin
Monroe (Anne Heche) is forced by circumstance to spend
almost a week with hard-drinking, simple-living freight
plane pilot Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford) it is not
exactly a made-for-each-other couple. In fact Robin is on
a holiday with her rather straight-jacket boy-friend
Frank Martin (David Schwimmer) who doesnt hesitate
to pop the question on their arrival in the South Pacific
island, when she is forced to go to Tahiti on an urgent
assignment. Thats how she is thrown together with
Quinn.
Now in a film of this
nature the boy-friend has to be a dud. After all, he has
to lose the girl. Also the hero and the heroine have to
be incompatible, always arguing with each other or
fighting over little things. That helps the chemistry,
they say. But speaking of Harrison Ford in his salad days
I remember one of the finest romances Ive seen
Hanover Street has Ford in the lead role as a World War
II pilot who falls in love with a married woman played to
perfection by Leslie-Ann Downe. What a film!
Im not a big fan of
director Ivan Reitman whose Ghostbusters was not really
my cup of tea. His Dave in which Kevin Kline plays a very
human American President is better. Here he does a good
job and this is mainly because of a witty screenplay by
Michael Browning and two very talented performers. Ford
of course is tried and tested but Anne Heche, whom we
first saw alongside Tommy Lee Jones in Volcano and who
seems to be going from strength to strength.
The anything-is-possible
genre which Hollywood thrives on these days, helps. If
the plane crashes, you that somehow before the curtain
come down it will be mended. It may not be as plausible
as say The Flight of the Phoenix, a saga of survival in
the wilderness but then it was made in the 1960s and will
remain a classic. In todays films credibility is
not an important ingredient.
This is what co-producer
Roger Birnbaum says about picking Ford: "The reason
I thought Harrison would be perfect for the part is that
he conveys all the qualities of the part required
wit, manliness and confidence". And that he surely
does.
Harrison Ford fans will
surely like him better in films like Witness (with Kelly
McGillis) and Frantic (directed by Roman Polanski) or
even action-packed thrillers like Clear and Present
Danger or Patriot Games. But this casting only shows that
Ford has had his day and must be less physical. And in
this he surely succeeds.
The arithmetic of the
title Six Days, Seven Nights doesnt seem right and
for all its predictability it is worth watching.
Youll also see that Hollywood seems to prefer
skimpier females (Gwyneth Parltow is another) these days.
Anne Heche plays the Janet Leigh part in Psycho but more
of that next time.
This
feature was published on March 21, 1999
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