***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Matthew McConaughey, John Turturro, Alan Arkin, Clea Duvall, Amy Irving, Barbara Sukowa, William Wise, Tia Texada, Alex Burns, and Frankie Faison
Directed by Jill Sprecher & written by Karen and Jill Sprecher
2001 (2002 wide release) R
Dozen-or-so Best Films of 2002
The “one thing” in “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” seems to be how we find lifelong happiness not so much through our actions but through our attitudes. Some may think this a fatalistic approach to life, as if saying that whatever will be will be, and the best we can do is to just smile while it happens. But a smile in the face of adversity is, in a way, the very notion of faith; while “Thirteen Conversations” is not specifically religious, a religious person will certainly have an interesting interpretation of it.
The “thirteen conversations” are the four or five interlocking stories that examine this question, and each is its own little modern fable. There really are thirteen different segments to these stories, but the number is also significant because luck and coincidence are among the elements which the characters muse over as being integral to that “one thing.” And there are a lot of coincidences, but we tolerate them, even enjoy them, because “Thirteen Conversations” is not a realistic film, but one in which we get to see things the way God might.
Where to begin…the movie’s second scene is probably its core, in which a lawyer on top of the world (Matthew McConaughey) goes to a bar to celebrate the incarceration of a no-goodnik. There he meets a cynical insurance salesman (the great Alan Arkin) who claims that happiness is a disaster waiting to happen. McConaughey is cocky and full of himself, and he responds by saying that his faith in justice prevents him from being a cynic. When we do our best to mete out justice, he claims, people feel that the world is ordered and try their best to live responsible lives. Good words, yes, but later that night he runs over a woman by accident and leaves her on the sidewalk (if we’re to believe movies like this and “Changing Lanes” then lawyers must be lousy drivers). He is wracked with guilt, not because he is pursued, but because his paradigm is tested.
Another paradigm is tested later in the film. In Alan Arkin’s office is a man they call Smiley (William Wise), always cheerful, always upbeat, not just because good things happen to him, but because he’s always able to see the upside. Arkin is quietly convinced that this is only an act, that Smiley is hiding something, that no one whose life is so ordinary and routine can be so happy. As Arkin obsesses with Smiley’s life, we begin to see the cracks in his own. The most suspenseful scene in “Thirteen Conversations” comes when Arkin thinks he can finally break Smiley’s smile, and I found myself holding my breath, hoping that Smiley’s optimism would win the day.
More characters are introduced and we discover more approaches to life, and we see which are the strongest approaches and which are the weakest as bad things happen to good people for seemingly no reason. Clea DuVall plays an innocent, almost angelic housekeeper stuck with a layabout co-worker (Tia Texada). Interesting how Texada is constantly trying to turn her into a cynic, but notice how remorseful Texada is after an accident turns DuVall into just such a pessimist. There’s also John Turturro, who seems to be in every independent movie ever made, here as an almost obsessive-compulsive physics teacher, who jumps from his wife to a mistress because contentment is not enough for him, and maybe happiness is just around the corner.
“Thirteen Conversations” features many fine performances, especially McConaughey, whose only real speaking scene is one of intense self-confidence and joviality, only to sink into mostly silent guilt for the rest of the film. As the physics professor, John Turturro is also in top form as a man of extreme intelligence but vaguely childish desires, as if his wife will not change no matter how long he’s gone. But this is a writer’s movie, and sisters Jill and Karen Sprecher have woven an engaging web of characters with better concerns than whether they’ll get the girl or blow up the bad guy. Oscar-winning editor Stephen Mirrione (“Traffic”) appears with them on the DVD commentary and we realize that he was given a lot of control over the film, not so much in its content, but in its emphasis. “Thirteen Conversations” features more important characters than the average Hollywood film, and credit should be awarded both in front of and behind the camera for how well and swiftly they are developed.
This is a refreshing movie, not unlike last year’s very good “Lantana,” because it begins with several disparate but interesting elements, and it’s only as we watch and decipher how they combine that we feel the film’s full power. Interlocking stories have been in vogue since “Pulp Fiction,” a film about to turn nine-years-old. In some movies the weaving of plot threads and coincidences are an exercise in clever writing, and, while exciting, exist for their own sake, like in Doug Lyman’s all-night party “Go” (1999). Clearly this is not the case with “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing.” This is not a loud film, nor one that sucks you in and makes you empathize enormously with its characters—and maybe I would have enjoyed it even more if I could have found more empathy—but one that is likely to give the brain a good bit of food.
WHAT MY DAMN WIFE THINKS: “In the DVD commentary, one of the sisters mentions that there had to be a lot of cigarette smoking in ‘Thirteen Conversations’ to ensure the movie, which has no violence or nudity, would get an R rating. Why? Because, as she said, ‘movies like this have to be rated R.’ Almost all independent or artsy movies have a R rating, even when PG-13 would be just as appropriate. Maybe adults are more likely to see movies that are rated R rather than PG-13. As for those 13 to 17-year-olds, I don’t think ‘13 Converstions’ would be inappropriate for them; generally, kids can absorb a more sophisticated movie than they’re given credit for, if given a chance.”
Finished January 3, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night