** (out of ****)
Starring Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz, Ian Holm, Holly Hunter, Delroy Lindo, Maury Chaykin, Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, and Don Hedaya
Directed by Danny Boyle & written by John Hodge
1997 R
“A Life Less Ordinary” may look like a war in heaven, but it’s really just a battle of screenwriting contrivances. This is a movie of interesting details, side notes, and subplots. But the center is a great big hole. All the diversions—the angels, gangsters, kidnapping, airport novels, robots, dream sequences, claymation, choreography, weird graphics, and mountain men—just emphasize how insubstantial the love story between the two central characters is. Outside the convention of the spoiled rich girl being attracted to the handsome rogue, I saw no reason why Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor, both fine thespians, should fall in love. Instead they have endless, circular, childish, and rather mean-spirited arguments, I guess intended to be funny, or at least develop character. Sure.
But let me back up and explain a little plot. Our Hero (McGregor of “Attack of the Clones”) has just been dumped by his girlfriend, fired from his job as a janitor, and, if I can be allowed to judge these things, given a bad hair cut. His attempt to confront the head (Ian Holm; “The Sweet Hereafter”) of the gigantic and morally-questionable corporation that used to employ him, needless to say, does not go well. He ends up fleeing the building with his boss’s daughter (Cameron Diaz; “Charlie’s Angels”) and a revolver. Ewan doesn’t so much kidnap her as become a willing accomplice to her split-second decision to kidnap herself.
Cameron is quite the character herself, a spoiled rich beauty par excellence, who deflects potential suitors by shooting apples off their heads, William Tell-style, with a .357. Life has emasculated Ewan long before they cross paths, but she emasculates him further, telling him how a kidnapping should work and whining when he doesn’t tie her up correctly. They take to the road, including a shack in the middle of nowhere. Romance and hilarity ensue.
Well, they should ensue, but they don’t. Cameron and Ewan just bicker and bicker and bicker. Everything Ewan does is, if not wrong, then at least wrong to her, and they start up bickering again. Even after they sleep together I started to think, finally they’ll stop, but no, there was just more arguing after that.
Don’t get me wrong, a good romance is hard to write, much harder than an action movie. Writer John Hodge (“Trainspotting”) has tried every way he can think of to hide the fact that this love story is not convincing, or to create the illusion that he “intentionally” wrote it badly, perhaps to make a point or be “ironic.” His sleight-of-hand includes two angels (Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo), ordered by the archangel Gabriel himself (Dan Hedaya) to bring the two lovers together. At one point, Holly and Delroy find themselves trying to write love letters on behalf of Cameron and Ewan, perhaps reflecting Hodge’s own dilemma.
“A Life Less Ordinary” is filled with bits that are “outrageous” and “shocking” for the sake of shock and outrage. Diaz shoots apples off her suitor’s heads instead of using witty banter or cutting remarks. She aims a loaded pistol first at a child and then at Ewan when they rob a bank, while the traditional approach of threatening a teller would have done the job. Regardless of whether or not these interludes are justifiable in the context of the rest of the film, turning up the volume on them only emphasizes, like all the other diversions, how empty the movie’s center is.
The diversions themselves are mostly worthwhile. Diaz and McGregor share an entertaining song-and-dance routine (he does his own singing, she does not). Cinematographer Brian Tufano has shot the movie beautifully, with rich oranges and pinks throughout, and the claymation sequence during the closing credits is as adorable as anything from Aardman Animation. Holly Hunter’s angel seems to have based her behavior on slinky seductresses from 1940s noirs, and the fact that no one responds to her sexually makes the performance all the more amusing. Delroy Lindo is as earnest as ever, Ian Holm is a fetishist sleazebag, and character actors Tony Shalhoub and Maury Chaykin pop up for a few minutes each. Even McGregor’s desperate, likable loser and Diaz’s obnoxious brat are well-rounded characters. “A Life Less Ordinary” just presents no way for them to fall in love.
Finished September 22, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night
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