Hamlet 2

Rating: **

In the chewy centre of Hamlet 2, there’s something brilliant waiting to happen. But like a great thought that finds its way to the tip of your tongue before disappearing forever, what exactly that kernel of brilliance is completely escapes me. Maybe it’s the notion about someone of marginal talent even taking it upon himself to script the follow-up chapter of the greatest tragedy ever written. Better still is the remarkably simple plot device used to salvage the last ten minutes of that play: a time machine where in everybody’s saved and brought to “the present.” They also, somehow, inexplicably pick up Jesus along the way. Now that’s chutzpah.

The point of Hamlet 2, directed by Andrew Fleming from a script by Fleming and South Park writer Pam Brady, seems to be to make the thing main event as offensive as possible. Maybe it’s my liberal bent, but what’s all the fuss about? I’m more insulted by the fact that “Hamlet 2” seems to be just about the most prosaic of unpredictable high school musicals ever created. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened, as that bald philosopher from Springfield might observe. Sure the central musical number provocatively entitled “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” will get you some scowls and a few old ladies reflexively crossing themselves, but I’ve seen more offensive stuff on Vision TV.

If there’s a salvation to Hamlet 2, it’s the go for broke, comedic performance by Steve Coogan. After small but thankless roles in Night at the Museum and Tropic Thunder, not to mention a well-received but not so well-seen starring role in A Cock and Bull Story, Coogan really gets a chance to shine as actor-turned-drama teacher Dana Marschz (the mispronunciation of his last name, of course, is a running gag). Coogan really throws himself into the part with tremendous enthusiasm and reckless abandon from how he comes off. By themselves, the words, “I feel like I’ve be raped in the face,” sounds like nothing, but with Coogan’s exasperated delivery, as if a high school reporter’s opinion is akin to a thumbs down vote from Caesar, takes it to entirely new levels of resonance.

I wish the same could be said for Catherine Keener though, because she looks really bored played Dana’s put upon wife. Ditto for Elisabeth Shue, whom you’d think might appreciate a meaty, deconstructionist role in a deft post-modern comedy, but then again, that’s not what Hamlet 2 is and that’s not the part she got. Since Shue’s heyday was 80s numbers like Adventures in Babysitting and Cocktail, she just serves as a gatling gag about how the kids don’t know their pop culture heritage. Basically, it all seems kind of silly, yet somehow not as silly as Amy Poehler’s brief turn as an ACLU lawyer, which had so much comedic potential, yet Poehler seems to get short-shrift in the end.

Outside of Coogan’s theatrics, there’s not much here to tantalize. Even simple things like Dana’s creation of plays based on mainstream Hollywood films seems staid, especially since Rushmore’s Max Fischer got there first and, oh yeah, Broadway’s being doing this for real since The Producers opened in 2001. That’s not to say a competently put together stage production of Erin Brockovich wouldn’t be interesting to see but… actually, I take that back. No it wouldn’t. I have about as much interest seeing that as I do in seeing someone actually put on a production of Hamlet 2, or at least if they do, I hope it’s actually funny, and not kind of sad with an element of that’s crazy.

The Savages

Rating: ****

Something about The Savages appeals on a level you can only connect with if you have a sibling. That love them and hate them dynamic that makes you appreciate someone for their support but deride them for being a pain in your butt, while realizing that at once you both need them and would sometimes do anything to be rid of them. Sad but true. The battling Savages are the epitome of this in Tamara Jenkins’ tragicomedy of (nearly) the same name. Anchored by three great performances, The Savages will make you laugh, make you cry and maybe just even appreciate those people that share your last name and a deep-seeded, familial connection.

The story follows John and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney), two highly dysfunctional people that credit their lack of functioning to their verbally abusive father, Lenny (Philip Bosco). John is a theatre professor in Upstate New York whose Polish girlfriend is leaving the country after her visa expired, much to his disinterest. Wendy is a corporate drone dating a married man while struggling to remake herself as a playwright. They’re both forced to confront their father and their past when Lenny’s girlfriend dies and he’s unable to care for himself anymore. Moving him closer to home, from Arizona to New York, old tensions and old arguments resurface as John and Wendy must deal with the pending death of their father and the remains of his legacy.

If you like bittersweet tales of family dysfunction like Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale or the works of Wes Anderson or Alexander Payne, then The Savages is your type of bitter pill to swallow. As I said, it’s anchored by three excellent performances by three workhorse actors that never really disappoint. But working together here, Hoffman, Linney and Bosco and truly make you believe the wellspring of resentment that’s the undercurrent of the story’s emotion. Hoffman ably shows off his ability to feign disinterest as another smarter-than-thou academic. Linney is really understated and reserved in what could have been a really shrill and disagreeable part, while Bosco plays Lenny as a guy trying to cover-up a much deeper poisonous nature that he really just can’t hide.

Aside from the melancholy nature of the characters, Jenkins really works the setting to add greater and almost overwhelming bleakness to the affair. The desolate winter of Buffalo is captured in all it’s glory and manipulated through interesting camera work to magnify the isolation of the characters; as if the winterscape is a manifestation of the Savages' foulness. But aside from the great cinematography and Mise-en-scène, Jenkins is particularly savage (heh) with how the characters treat each other. It can be rather unflinching in how these supposed family member acts towards one and other, but somehow both the actors and Jenkins manage to convey the love as well.

It really is quite impressive how easily you get sucked up. The Savages has really a barebones kind of script that plumbs very current issues of child’s responsibility to their parents later in life and how the love between them is sometimes not something easy to come by or explained easily. With the compelling acting and the very realistic, vérité style of filmmaking, Jenkins overcomes what could have amounted to “Movie of the Week” style histrionics and jabs us with the unflinching truth of the emotions. There are quite a few opportunities for laughter in The Savages, but these are usually followed by a pause. Somewhere between comedy and tragedy is real life, and The Savages really captures that.