Shaun de Waal Movies of the week
The pairing of compellingly contrasting characters has surely been a staple of film narrative since film narrative began. Obviously, the development of a (heterosexual) romantic relationship is one of cinema’s favourite plots, the ultimate form of bonding across the gender line; the buddy movie does the same for what are usually same-gender non-sexual couplings.
Part of the interest lies in the clash and/or harmonisation of actorly personae. Think of the sparks generated by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, by Woody Allen and Diane Keaton or by Bogie and Bacall. Those were real-life romances as well, but many combinations which were not still caused a fascinating friction – Hepburn and Bogie, for instance. The buddy movie has tried almost as many partnerships, often as successfully: Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon.
Even when there isn’t a romance or a buddying to be had, the appearance of two intriguingly contrasted actors can propel a movie most stimulatingly. Remember Bette Davis going one-on-one with Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? And remember how much publicity Heat generated a few years ago, just because it featured Robert de Niro versus Al Pacino?
It’s not just a matter of casting the right people opposite each other: every movie presumably tries to do that. And it’s not just a matter of finding a villain with presence to oppose the hero (who, after all, has more screen time). For a movie built around two opposing or complementary characters, to whom roughly equal weight must be given, it’s essential to find actors with roughly equal gravitas as well as a way of working together that creates a whole greater than the sum of two parts.
Such an energy is achieved in two rather different movies opening this week, the conspiracy thriller Arlington Road and the comedy Analyze This.
Arlington Road pits against each other two exceptionally sensitive and intelligent actors, Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. Bridges is a university professor who specialises in the study of terrorism in the United States. His wife, an FBI agent, was killed in the bombing of a federal building, which lends force to his obsessions – including his growing suspicion of his neighbour (Robbins), who is on the surface the epitome of a decent family man. Is there really a fiendish plot afoot, or is the professor subsiding into paranoia?
The movie is shot with verve, angles, colours and jumps contributing notably to the tension that builds slowly but inexorably; the climax is riveting. This is a clever, pessimistic, well-made thriller, with the greater portion of its thrills being triggered not by bang-bang action, but by the subtle interplay between Bridges and Robbins.
Analyze This, by contrast, matches De Niro and Billy Crystal in order to make us laugh. Which it does, admirably. It shares its basic idea with the acclaimed TV series The Sopranos – mobster goes to shrink. Here, doing what is essentially a self- conscious parody of his mafioso roles, De Niro is the godfather who starts suffering from panic attacks. Crystal is the reluctant psychologist dragooned into helping him.
De Niro showed he could play comedy in the odd-couple buddy movie Midnight Run a decade ago; Crystal is going as a funny guy. The combination works because De Niro plays the straight man of the pair while Crystal damps down his more frenetic comic style and gives the shrink as much to worry about as the mobster. The result is a movie that plays with clichs rather than simply recycling them, making Analyze This a wittily knowing comedy with, thank heavens, more brain in it than Hollywood usually allows.