The Simian Line

Well, I purchased this video thinking it might be worthwhile. Indeed it is terrible. One grade below B. Plot is fairly predictable and at least from my point of the view, the characters somewhat disgusting and self centered. The so called Ugly, Rich and stupid American would apply here.

I in same week purchased Brokeback Mountain which as you all know was an academy award winner. This flick against BBM rates -4. Sorry, but that's my critical view.

I do enjoy good flicks and as we know the babble generation isn't too discriminating.

I also enjoyed Vera Drake, a very moving and well acted flick.

The New York papers hacked this poor film to bits this week. A friend dragged me in, and I expected it to be terrible.

Wrong! This is a beautiful, funny, romantic film. "Ghost" for grown-ups who watched the WTC towers crumble to dust.

WHO WOULD LIKE THIS: People on a date who are mature enough to like "Ghost"; adults in their 40s and up who want to see a film that's intelligent without being grim. Probably not for kids under 16 (unless they really like the Turner Movie Classics channel.) Has an R rating, but suitable for most people who aren't too sensitive, because most of the cussing takes place in one short scene. The only other R-type material is a few tasteful shots of couples in bed together.

THE FILM: The main characters are three couples, two roommates, and a fortuneteller who talks to her dead husband who live in Weehawken, New Jersey. The film follows the struggle of the couples to stay together; the roommates to avoid coming together; and the fortune-teller to hold to her belief that she can talk to her dead husband.

THE SCRIPT: The script is a little loose, but there is actually a plot, the characters all have real jobs (no professors, detectives, prostitutes or starship captains) and the dialogue is subtle. Moreover, all the main characters have excellent parts. The writers also got the Weehawken details right.

THE CAST: The cast includes William Hurt, Tyne Daly, Lynn Redgrave, Harry Connick Jr., Eric Stoltz and Cindy Crawford. Cameos? No. They all have real parts, and they all do a great job. (Yes, even Cindy Crawford. )

THE REAL HEROES:

• Patrick Seymour wrote a gentle, moving score, and he or someone else worked it into the film at the right moments without letting it overpower the other elements.

• The cinematographer, David Bridges, made the people and houses look haunting. He also made excellent use of the fact that Weehawken sits on a cliff across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Bridges took a lot of shots of the characters walking in front of the Manhattan skyline -- including eerie glimpses of the WTC towers. He also took lots of shots of the New York Waterway ferry boats -- the boats that spent Sept. 11 ferrying thousands of people to safety -- and corpses to morgues -- in places like Weehawken and Jersey City.

Of course, a lot of the people who died lived in houses just like the ones in this film.

The Simian Line is a sweet, peaceful film. But, without knowing what would happen to the WTC towers, the filmmakers made the first film released after the tragedy that cherishes the spirit of what was lost.

The Simian Line (2000)

There are attempts at stylizing, moments of humor, apparent insights into contemporary life in New York (and New Jersey), and a kind of cheap glamorizing of people who already very glamorous. There's a very starry cast (big names drop like snowflakes, and have has much resilience), but between a television kind of tawdry filmmaking, a stumbling overreaching plot, and just plain bad directorial decisions, it's pretty awful.

In fact, the longer you watch it, the more you wonder at how so many people could have been involved in something that went so wrong. The director Linda Yellen is known for a line of increasingly awful television movies, poorly made and either sentimental or pushy. This is not officially made for t.v. but it has the same feel, with dissolves used for convenience rather than effect, with flat or bright lighting and still cameras, with actors who are determined to act normal, and normal is pretty dull when you take it literally. Some odd additions might not help--Harry Connick Jr., who is charming as a sit-com guest doesn't hold his own, and Cindy Crawford, who of course has mostly to look pretty, making you realize this is what most actresses do, and just as well.

The music is sappy to boot. Which reminds you of all those movies who want to make you feel something by pulling all the right strings, but you end up resenting it because it's not the real deal. What's frustrating here most of all is a movie that wants to be deep, and which made such attempts to be deep, only forces you to react against it.

If you do stick it out, you'll find a growing interlayering of lives, including a couple from the past (one of them a William Hurt with a horrendous southern accent) seen only by a mystic. And by the viewer. It's just not clever or interesting enough. Yes, the guys are buff, the women are charming, and life for regular very rich people who act very badly is the raw material for this really striving but impossibly flawed movie.

"The Simian Line" was filmed in 1999 and spent two years on the shelf before getting a limited American commercial release; here in Britain it bypassed cinemas completely and premiered, appropriately enough, on the Sky Premier cable channel (on the Tuesday of the week it opened in New York and Los Angeles, in fact). In all cases it's not hard to see why, and not just because like the opening credits of "The Sopranos," the presence of the World Trade Center here has a definite resonance in these post-September 11 days.

Director/co-writer Linda Yellen shot the movie on a low budget and in very little time, and unfortunately it shows all the way through; technical blotches aside, the would-be whimsical and romantic story of four couples told by a psychic that one of them will be history at midnight on New Year's Eve intertwines its various storylines (all too insubstantial for their own good) far less effectively than your average episode of "The Love Boat," with scenes ending abruptly, some poor dialogue and situations, and no narrative flow to speak of. Throw in excessive use of pointless voiceovers and the inexplicable presence of a pair of ghosts (William Hurt and Samantha Mathis) and it should be a disaster... but it's just a mixed bag instead.

The film has a number of good points; several scenes do hit home, although a bit less time devoted to Lynn Redgrave worrying about losing her devoted younger lover Harry Connick Jr and a bit more development of the other strands would have given the movie more balance. But it's biggest plus is its ensemble cast, most of whom play a big part in making this slight tale watchable. Only one of the team - apart from an irritatingly accented Hurt - lets the side down; it's not who you think it is, either. Instead it's Tyne Daly's embarrassing psychic, about whom the less said the better.

This is, on the other hand, a good deal for Redgrave, for Connick, for Monica Keena, for Jamey Sheridan... and especially for Cindy Crawford, who although stuck in the least dramatic plotline does deliver a good, genuine performance as Sheridan's equally business-minded but not quite as relentlessly driven wife. This is to her what "Coming to America" and "The Nutty Professor" were to Eddie Murphy - the film may not be all that good, but the work is another matter entirely. (Note from one of Cindy's male fans to the rest of them: Watch for the bathing scene.) Time to give her a break for "Fair Game," methinks. As for Yellen, better luck next time.

This film is a credit to writer/director Linda Yellen's hard work. The story was unique and heartwarming and the performances were great! Tyne Daly's character was so great and unexpected, Redgrave was unbelievable, as always, and who knew Cindy Crawford and Harry Connick were such great actors. I would recommend this movie to anyone!