Tom Conti stars in and was Oscar-nominated for taking the lead role in this blackly comedic drama with literally a dark twist in the tale right at the end. He plays the improbably-named Gowan McGland, a contemporary, feted Scottish poet who hits the lucrative American lecture trail as a distraction from his writer's block. Unfortunately he also hits the bottle, hard, and isn't above disgracing himself with rudely inappropriate behaviour at the various soirées laid on for him and is so down on his luck that he pilfers tips left on tables at restaurants for meals he didn't even pay for in the first place.
With more than one bored, middle-aged American housewife prepared to fall at his feet and do his bidding and an ex-wife looking to profit from her published kiss and tell revelations of their time together, McGland's life is something of a slow-motion train crash. Until that is, Kelly McGillis's much younger pretty student Geneva Spofforth (the character names in this movie are rather silly) takes pity on him, paying a train fare he's either financially or drunkenly incapable of meeting. They hook up, much to the disapproval of her mother, although her more wordly grandfather appears to be on his side.
McGland makes the awful mistake of crossing a wealthy dentist, Joel Fabiani's Dr Haxby, by, naturally, bedding his wife (Conti's real-life wife in fact, Kara Wilson) and compounds his felony by seeking free dental treatment from the very man he's cuckolded. Obviously he's never seen the well-known scene in "Marathon Man" as a painful revenge is extracted more than it's exacted.
It just remains to be seen if Conor and Geneva can make a go of things, especially after she delivers some cataclysmic news to him, but the accidental intervention of man's best friend at the end delivers the last words and coincidentally explains the movie's rather unusual title.
Reportedly based on the later life of the celebrated Welsh poet Dylan Thomas who was similarly accursed, some might say blessed, with drunkenness and debauchery, Conti shines as the tousle-haired McGland who never seems to change his clothes. Cynical and superior, ever ready with an asinine put-down to those he considers beneath him, which is just about everyone he encounters, he's a difficult character to warm to, making me wonder if all poets talk in such a convoluted and pretentious manner as McGland does here. I didn't really buy into Geneva's attraction for him either and found the frankly weird ending as unexpected as it was bonkers.
An unsurprisingly wordy film, peopled with rather unattractive characters, it had the look and feel of what it very much appeared, a film adaptation of a play, Despite good acting by Conti and in particular Roberts Blossom in support as the knowing old grandfather, I found the movie rather detached and mannered and found I couldn't quite connect with it at any level.
