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Film Clips
SEPTEMBER 14, 1998:
 THE GOVERNESS. Minnie Driver plays Rosina, a beautiful
and spirited 19th-century Jewish girl whose life changes after
her father dies, leaving the family destitute. To survive she
must either marry a smelly old fishmonger, become a whore, or
pass for a gentile and go work among the uptight goyim.
So she becomes a governess (disguised under the vaguely Goth pseudonym
Mary Blackchurch), and somehow manages to combine all three. She
finds a position on an island and ends up falling for the man
of the house, Mr. Cavendish (the utterly unappealing Tom Wilkinson),
a brooding man of science. The two invent photography, oddly enough,
but Cavendish is so repressed he freaks out because Rosina/Mary
Blackchurch is forever wanting to get naked with him. (If you're
dying to see Minnie Driver in the buff, this film is for you.)
Meanwhile Cavendish's hot young son is swooning for Rosina, rolling
around in her bedcovers and such, but she'll have nothing to do
with him. This has the feel of a once-good script that's been
homogenized and dumbed down by the movie studio for ease of digestion.
First-time writer and director Sandra Goldbacher shows some spunk,
but this ends up being just another one of those pointless period
movies where everyone's always overcoming repressive times by
having sex. --Richter
PERMANENT MIDNIGHT. If you hate Ben Stiller's acting, you'll
want to avoid Permanent Midnight like it was a weekend
with Richard Simmons. If not, this is definitely worth checking
out. Although not long on originality, this true story of Jerry
Stahl, the heroin-addicted writer for the TV series Alf,
has some creative and engaging moments, including the best crack-smoking
scene ever filmed. In the role of Stahl, Stiller does his entire
quivering, double-talking, hyper-active shtick here, and it works
well in conveying the excited desperation of someone on the edge
of fame. Still, I know a good number of people who find Stiller
unbearable, and this is him at his most intense. Maria Bello (of
ER) turns in a creditable performance as the anonymous
woman who finds him working at a drive-through burger stand after
his rehabilitation; and Elizabeth Hurley plays her standard role
as Stahl's beautiful green-card wife, but really it's Stiller's
show. Even if you can't stand him, at least slip in for the last
few minutes where, as Stahl, he goes on all the talk shows for
the obligatory post-modern, post-addiction, post-recovery, public
self-flagellation. --DiGiovanna
YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. Pessimistic filmmaker Neil
LaBute follows up his much-lauded first film The Company of
Men with this bleak and funny look at couple-dynamics. Everyone
is named Cary or Jerry or Barry or Cherry or Mary or something
here, and they all hop in and out of bed with each other in search
of something like satisfaction. Of course, they just end up feeling
more despair. LaBute really pushes things over the top with some
wonderfully evil characters (Jason Patrick plays a wildly misogynistic
gynecologist), and by stubbornly refusing all the characters the
tiniest shard of redemption. It's mean, but it's funny too--sort
of like if Woody Allen had written Carnal Knowledge. --Richter
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