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Political scolding, Hollywood style
28 November 2005
[indent]The Interpreter is an interesting political thriller set in the United Nations. For the inside shots alone, it's worth watching because it's a place we seldom get to see in other media.
The story is a complicated thread of sub-plots woven together so the viewer never quite sees it all come together until the end. There's a lot of guessing involved as you try to unravel the various bits into some sense, although the final scene isn't as great a surprise as you expect. In fact, I preferred the alternate ending offered on the DVD.
The story involves a mythical country in Africa - Maboto - which is a thinly-disguised Zimbabwe. And its violent, ruthless dictator is transparently meant to be Robert Mugabe. There's a low-level political condemnation being made here about Zimbabwe and the tragedy its living through under Mugabe, but it's diluted and weak, a backdrop not an in-your-face message. Hollywood is gently scolding Mugabe rather than trying to raise international awareness about his rule of terror.
The two main leads - Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn - are reasonably good, given that I haven't enjoy either much in past roles.
Kidman's should have been be a stronger character, and shown a little more believable emotion when pushed. She is far too calm after barely missing being killed. I was impressed that she managed to maintain a fair South African accent throughout the movie, but we don't really see her emote very much and we're never sure if it's because the character is so tightly wrapped, or she simply can't act that well. Some potentially interesting areas of character development - her flute playing for example - are not as well fleshed-out as they might have been to at least give her a more vital persona.
I've never been sure how I feel about Kidman, aside from her acting. She's attractive in a pale sort of way, sort of like a young, blonde Dianne Keaton, with a bit of the prom queen in her.
Penn - looking older - gives a solid performance, the quite, strong type instead of his usual pushy, aggressive style. He goes through the lost-soul found sequence quite well and emerges at the end as the stronger of the two, having come to some sort of closure over his wife's recent death. We get a sense of his character, his loneliness, and his isolation, because Penn puts more into making it believable.
An unfulfilled but tantalizing thread is the potential romantic relationship between Penn and his Secret Service partner (played by Catherine Keener). That could have helped develop the inter-personal tensions in the film, since there's an obvious tie between the Penn and Kidman characters. Unfortunately, it wasn't built on, and the partner's character is pretty much two dimensional as a result. We only get a hint of it in one of the deleted scenes.
Overall, a good evening's entertainment: intriguing, some interesting canards develop, you never quite know how it will unfold, and some good action scenes. No sex, very little violence, no swearing, and no one smokes. For that last alone, it deserves kudos. I give it a 3.75 out of 5.[/indent]
The story is a complicated thread of sub-plots woven together so the viewer never quite sees it all come together until the end. There's a lot of guessing involved as you try to unravel the various bits into some sense, although the final scene isn't as great a surprise as you expect. In fact, I preferred the alternate ending offered on the DVD.
The story involves a mythical country in Africa - Maboto - which is a thinly-disguised Zimbabwe. And its violent, ruthless dictator is transparently meant to be Robert Mugabe. There's a low-level political condemnation being made here about Zimbabwe and the tragedy its living through under Mugabe, but it's diluted and weak, a backdrop not an in-your-face message. Hollywood is gently scolding Mugabe rather than trying to raise international awareness about his rule of terror.
The two main leads - Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn - are reasonably good, given that I haven't enjoy either much in past roles.
Kidman's should have been be a stronger character, and shown a little more believable emotion when pushed. She is far too calm after barely missing being killed. I was impressed that she managed to maintain a fair South African accent throughout the movie, but we don't really see her emote very much and we're never sure if it's because the character is so tightly wrapped, or she simply can't act that well. Some potentially interesting areas of character development - her flute playing for example - are not as well fleshed-out as they might have been to at least give her a more vital persona.
I've never been sure how I feel about Kidman, aside from her acting. She's attractive in a pale sort of way, sort of like a young, blonde Dianne Keaton, with a bit of the prom queen in her.
Penn - looking older - gives a solid performance, the quite, strong type instead of his usual pushy, aggressive style. He goes through the lost-soul found sequence quite well and emerges at the end as the stronger of the two, having come to some sort of closure over his wife's recent death. We get a sense of his character, his loneliness, and his isolation, because Penn puts more into making it believable.
An unfulfilled but tantalizing thread is the potential romantic relationship between Penn and his Secret Service partner (played by Catherine Keener). That could have helped develop the inter-personal tensions in the film, since there's an obvious tie between the Penn and Kidman characters. Unfortunately, it wasn't built on, and the partner's character is pretty much two dimensional as a result. We only get a hint of it in one of the deleted scenes.
Overall, a good evening's entertainment: intriguing, some interesting canards develop, you never quite know how it will unfold, and some good action scenes. No sex, very little violence, no swearing, and no one smokes. For that last alone, it deserves kudos. I give it a 3.75 out of 5.[/indent]
