Andrew Worsdale : Movie of the week
Joseph Ruben’s Return to Paradise is a remake of French director Pierre Jolivet’s Le Force Majeure (1989). The earlier version was not released on the local circuit, but some may have seen it at the French Film Festival in the early 1990s.
The American remake is a gripping, intelligent drama which moves between sentiment and suspense.
The plot is fascinating. It revolves around three friends: Sheriff, a New York limousine driver; Tony, an architect with a fiance; and Lou, a New Age environmentalist.
On holiday in Malaysia, the three indulge in sex, booze and cheap hashish. At the end of the vacation Sheriff and Tony return home, but Lou stays on for a while. He is caught with a load of hash that the others dumped in the trash before departing, and is imprisoned.
Two years later a lawyer tracks down Sheriff and Tony in New York with a proposition. Lou has seven days before being sentenced to death, but she has struck a deal with the Malaysian authorities: if Sheriff and Tony return to share responsibility for the drugs and each serve three years in prison, their friend’s life will be spared.
Most of the film is concerned with this moral dilemma. Scriptwriters Wesley Strick and Bruce Robinson’s story is wrought with nail-biting choices.
Strick, who wrote the scripts for Cape Fear, Arachnophobia and Mike Nichol’s Wolf among others, is a perfect partner to Robinson, who won an Oscar for his work on The Killing Fields and became a sensation with his directorial debut, the cult comedy Withnail and I.
The performances, too, are first-rate. Ann Heche, who seems to be garnering superstar status after coming out about her relationship with actress Ellen Degeneres, is perfectly cast as the hard-talking attorney who turns soft when she falls in love. She holds a secret (which I won’t divulge) that is revealed at the film’s climax. The climax is filled with coincidental plot twists, and this is the film’s single weakness.
Vince Vaughn, who plays Sheriff, is perfect as the insecure chap who doesn’t want to go back to “paradise” to help his friend. His moral questioning makes up the heart of the film.
David Conrad is great as the yuppie who takes an immediate moral stand and decides to return to serve time. When he gets there, however, things change.
Joaquin Phoenix plays the beleaguered prisoner. He is great in the role as the guy who desperately wants to live even if it means his friends have to do time.
The film is also incredibly well shot by Reynaldo Villalobos, whose luminous cinematography adds to the atmosphere.
It’s a pleasure to see an American movie that isn’t full of stock action situations and loads of body bags.
This is a genuinely engrossing drama with a taut script, elegant direction and a perfect balance of suspense and melodrama.