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"Heights" takes a dramatic view of a narrow, two-degree-of-separation Manhattan of ambitious, beautiful people as in "Sex and the City" where the women are strong and the men are promiscuous, gay, immature and/or liars, and manages to make it touching.
While Chris Terrio's directing over emphasizes the bitchy, gay world of the theater, the arts and the journalism that feeds off them (where Rufus Wainwright can pretty much replay his public persona), Amy Fox's screenplay ultimately has a sympathetic heart for the gradually revealed interconnected characters so we do care about them.
Sensitive, powerful performances withstand the artifices of the structure around a concentrated day of rehearsals for "the Scottish play" and interviews for a magazine article for an exhibit opening.
Glenn Close, looking very different than in this season's "The Shield," starts out as the very image of a gay icon diva, a la her Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," in various, too pointed interpretations of Lady MacBeth and too many Shakespeare quotes, but the film intriguingly explores the complex reactions of a heterosexual woman who attracts gay fans, and her flirtatious eye for young hunks is fun to watch. She gradually reveals a more full-rounded woman, wife and mother over the course of the day. Her belief in the passionate power of literature seems an affectation until she uses it for beautiful succor for her daughter, in adapting Poe's "Annabel Lee," as "Isabel Lee."
Elizabeth Banks, as her daughter, starts out as the usual perfect bland blonde shiksa her Jewish fiancé would prize, then gradually reveals a mature modern woman torn at first between marriage and career (including weighted temptations with Matthew Davis as her ex that she deals with deftly even if another macho guy shows up as a non-American savior), who is then roiled in facing other truths about love and and one of her photographer subway subject's excoriation to "get your own life."
Scenes that seem just to be there for comic relief as they go on a bit too long, like the somewhat bumbling interfaith marriage counseling session with George Segal as the family rabbi or a pretentious party with a cameo by gossip columnist Cindy Adams, turn out to be poignant chinks in the deconstruction of an artificial existence. It's too bad that the repeated question about the traditional breaking of the glass at the wedding ceremony is only superficially explained as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple, as the full symbolism of sorrow always to be remembered amidst great joy is pregnant for the story.
James Marsden's handsome beauty to the camera is striking but is used as a continuing visual theme and plot point, as his fiancée says: "Of course he hit on you. Just look at you!", but we intensely feel the agony of his "very stressful day." While the ending is almost too neatly on the road to reconciliation, I was in such tears for these people that I was relieved that there was hope for their futures, as they do stick with you after the credits.
The music is an excellent backdrop for sophisticated New Yorkers, particularly the many selections by Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos. But roof tops have so much titular significance for the film, including an overly symbolic door that opens on to a church-like water tower, that it's surprising that no one is at at least humming "Up on the Roof."
score 8/10
noralee 10 July 2005
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1122889/ |
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26-3-2021 00:05:09