Rick

If you go to the movies to feel good about life, to feel all warm and fuzzy about the world around you, then "Rick" isn't for you. However, if you delight in stories that revel in the darker side of human nature, that have a nasty sense of humor, then this incredibly dark comedy might be just the film for you.

Based on Verdi's opera, "Rigoletto," editor-turned-director Curtiss Clayton brings to life a script by Daniel Handler, better known to audiences as the "Lemony Snicket" author. In "Rick," Bill Pullman plays the title character, a man who works at a company called Image, though we're never told what exactly he or the company do. His boss Duke, almost half Rick's age, engages in machismo talk and has a penchant for online chats on a porn I'm service.

To reveal more would be to destroy much of the fun of this very wicked film.

"Rick" actually goes way beyond dark comedy. Pullman gains tremendous glee from playing someone loathsome. Come to think of it, with the exception of Rick's teen-age daughter Eve (played by the marvelously talented young actress Agnes Bruckner), there really aren't any likable people in this movie.

And Eve, who's the only one who sees the good in her dad, isn't exactly squeaky clean. She gets her kicks by "talking" dirty on the Internet. Bruckner, whose depiction of an emotionally scarred high school student in "Blue Car" was one of last year's highlights, finds just the right mix of confidence and innocence to make Eve believable.

Often, it is hard to be absorbed by a film where none of the characters seems to have any redeeming virtues. But, strangely, "Rick" manages to hook us. Mostly because we're initially intrigued by who these people are and why they behave so despicably. Watching Rick berate a woman interviewing for a job is uncomfortable. Yet, there's something hypnotic about the whole sequence.

This is extremely broad social satire veering into the absurd. This film is filed with several odd moments. The interview aside, there's the initial macho gamesmanship between Rick and Duke (played by Aaron Stanford as a slimy creature, quite a departure from playing 15-year-old Oscar Grubman in "Tadpole"). Then there's Buck (Dylan Baker), who meets Rick in a bar where people spy on other patrons. Buck tells Rick he runs his own company. There's a funny joke about that when Rick sees Buck's business card.

"Rick" is by no means a perfect dark comedy. But it definitely has a strange way of keeping you interested in its characters. They may not be likable but, damn it, they're most certainly intriguing and captivating. If you're in the mood for something out of the ordinary and you relish films that dabble in morally decrepit people, give "Rick" a peek. I've seen better films this year, but this one will stick in my mind for a long time.

Don't let the presence of Bill Pullman (Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, Singles) fool you; this is no breezy romcom. Not by a mile.

Based on a famous opera (in case you don't already know which one, I won't tell you because that might ruin the story), it's a pretty clever modernization. It begins innocently enough like a good dark comedy, but almost immediately you start to pick up cues that the director is trying to unsettle us. Scenes of New York City are shot from low, wide angles creating a claustrophobic effect. Most of the story seems to happen at night in shady places or in the dark, ominous halls of the sleazebag corporation where Rick works. All of this offsets the comedy which is rife in the first half.

But if you're expecting a comic morality tale like "Scrooged" or "Groundhog Day" or even "A Christmas Carol", you'll be in for a few surprises. First of all, the choice of leading actor Bill Pullman is a puzzler. We're supposed to hate him, right? How can we possibly hate the eternal good guy "Walter from Sleepless in Seattle"? The answer is we can't. And I believe this casting choice was intentional. In the DVD extras the filmmakers say it's much more complicated than bad-guy-takes-his-lumps. Instead they create a complex protagonist who is evil but not without just cause. This complicates matters as we become sympathetic toward him. The experience can be very emotionally draining, but that's why I think this is a good film.

An outstanding performance from Agnes Bruckner as the daughter, as well as great supporting roles from everyone involved, keep things moving at a somewhat fast pace. You barely have time to notice the great architecture and powerful sets featured in the film, not to mention all the literary allusions and little winks at the audience (for example, notice how the phone number on Buck's business card keeps changing).

As far as creative retellings of classic stories go, "Rick" is a winner. Other good ones include "The Claim" (a wild west adaptation of the Byron poem "Ozymandias"), "Dolan's Cadillac" (based on Stephen King's rewrite of Poe's "Cask of Amontillado") and--a bit of a stretch but--"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", a kick-butt retelling of Moby Dick.

"Rick" is loosely based on Rigoletto, the tragic clown of Verdi's opera. Don't look to this film to find any parallel between the tragic court jester and the man at the center of it, Rick O'Lette, as the film is loosely based on the opera.

Curtiss Clayton, an editor who has started to direct his own projects, is an enormously talented man, as he shows with this indie film that we missed when it was released. "Rick" also has the powerful writing of Daniel Handler, who wrote the screen play. The film was a neat discovery, perhaps because we had no expectations of what was coming. Much credit is owed to its director who shows great style in telling the story for the screen.

If you haven't seen the film, perhaps you would like to stop reading here.

Rick, who we meet at the beginning of the film walking to his office, is one of the new breed of heartless executives, occupying important places within a company. As such, he is a man that feels above and beyond people like Michelle, an eager job applicant, who commits the sin of entering Rick's office when she shouldn't, only to interrupt Rick from watching the results of sports on his computer. When he finally calls her, he proceeds to belittle the young woman in a manner that is completely uncalled for. Of course, Michelle doesn't get the job!

We then meet Rick's boss, a ninety day wonder called Duke, who is just as obtuse as his employee, and much younger. A punk in business attire. Duke is just a repulsive individual who loves to visit porno chat rooms to get his kicks. Later that night while drinking, Rick and Duke find out Michelle, the would be employee, is their waitress at the club. Rick is completely offensive toward the woman, who has had it and she proceeds to tell him off, and is fired because of it. Michelle tells Rick, in no uncertain terms, that she hopes he will have to suffer for all what she has put her through. Never were these words more fitting.

Things are not much better at home where we see Eve, Rick's daughter chatting on the computer. Eve is a sad young woman. Evidently her mother has died, although nothing is revealed as to what happened. Rick, as a father shows not much warmth toward Eve.

When a former college friend, mysteriously visits Rick, we are not ready for what is coming next. Buck has a proposition for Rick that, at first, he is reluctant to comply with, but in retrospect, he goes along, but he has no clue of what an ironic fate awaits Rick at the end. It's almost as though the curse Michelle put on Rick had its effect when he least expected it.

Bill Pullman makes Rick a despicable individual without any redeeming qualities. Mr. Pullman does a wonderful job to convey this yuppie with the heart in the wrong place. The beautiful Agnes Bruckner plays Eve, Rick's daughter, who knows much more for her young age than some older, more experienced person. She is one of the best of the new actresses acting in films these days. Aaron Stanford is the reptilian Duke. Sandra Oh is wonderful as Michelle. Dylan Baker, a great character actor of stage and screen has a few excellent moments as Buck.

This is a film that should be seen by a wider audience. It proves that Curtiss Clayton is a director to be reckoned with.

To say that "Rick" is a black, bleak, despicable and vile wretch of a film is an understatement of solemnly epic proportions, but this doesn't mean it's not worth seeing.

There are great performances, especially from the always-superb Bill Pullman who - I have to say it - pulls out all the stops here in his portrayal of a man who has rotted from the inside (his wife was murdered for pocket change) and is still forced to go on living. "We can do this," is the motto of the company he works for, and this is but one tiny little irony in a film that is virtually overloaded with them, some subtle and some blatantly in-your-face obvious, but in the end, they all work, because the film is edited properly, with not one frame that doesn't belong. See it with someone you thoroughly despise.

When the Munich Filmfest 2004 offered "Rick" I was delighted. Because I love Verdi/"Rigoletto" and I happen to think that Bill Pullman is a very fine actor. (Whom I would like to see on stage; the biggest compliment I have to offer, Mr. Pullman -) However, I was/am deeply disappointed because this "adaptation" of a tragedy of Shakespearean or Greek dimensions, excepting one short moment, just didn't come off. To start with, Rick is such a hard-core bastard (much more so, mark you, than Rigoletto when, mistaking or over-doing his role as jester, laughs off the sorrow of a grieving father) that his janus-faced attitude of a loving father is about as 'convincing' as a square football! Moreover, his daughter Eve, apart from being a fairly attractive young female, has none of Gilda's characteristics. On the contrary, she's arrogant, spoiled, thoughtless, pretty ruthless and - in her own way - heartless. Very much like 'Duke' in fact whose part doesn't even begin to work, and remains shapeless and pale throughout the film. Thus, by victimizing Eve accidentally the writer and director achieve little more than a "Too bad"-reaction. And there are aeons between this and the suicide of Gilda, who knows only too well that she deliberately sacrifices her life for a man unworthy of her love.

However, there is ONE moment in "Rick" that is worthy of great drama/tragedy. And we owe it to (apart from Mr. Pullman) Ms Sandra Oh who (as Michelle) curses Rick in a night bar so vehemently, ferociously and convincingly that it took my breath away! Wow, WHAT a scene, what an actress!