The Guys
review by
Nicholas Schager, 4 April 2003
Theater director Jim Simpson
takes very few risks in his cinematic adaptation of The
Guys, Anne Nelson’s celebrated two-person play about a
journalist helping a NYC fire captain write eulogies for the men he
lost in the World Trade Center on 9/11, and the film suffers as a
result of his caution. Shot with a detached, economical precision
that infuses the drama with an awkward tentativeness, the film, more
often than not, feels unsure of how to confront its subject matter.
One can sense Simpson’s hesitation to plunge headfirst into
examining the damaged psyche of Nick, a captain wracked by
survivor’s guilt, and his unlikely partner Joan, a writer whose
time with the firefighter allows her to confront her own feelings of
powerlessness and despair. Simpson packs his film with unspectacular
close-ups and two-shots set in the kitchen and living room of
Joan’s perfectly-maintained Upper West Side apartment; his camera,
instead of intimately probing his characters’ rage, frustration,
and misery, remains nothing more than a passive observer. With the
exception of a few poignant excursions out onto the bloodied and
battered streets of New York City, this leaden visual storytelling
winds up simply revealing The Guys’ theatrical origins.
Sigourney Weaver and Anthony
LaPaglia star as Joan and Nick, and these veteran performers -- who
spent considerable time last year portraying these characters on the
stage -- bring a lived-in familiarity to the roles. Weaver’s Joan
is a successful journalist who, in her youthful days, spent time in
Latin American reporting on the most dangerous revolutionary events
she could find. Now living a safe, quiet life ensconced in her
affluent Manhattan abode with her husband and two children, Joan no
longer feels intimately connected to the material she writes about
on her word processor. When a friend asks her to help Nick construct
his tributes, it’s as though Joan has discovered a way to become
emotionally involved in the story that every New Yorker -- just by
reporting their safety to loved ones, friends, and colleagues -- has
been forced to accept as their own.
Arriving at Joan’s apartment,
Nick is devastated. His slumped body language, warily jumpy eyes,
and curt, slightly wavering speech reflect a man whose life has been
stripped bare. Eight men under his command were lost on that fateful
day, but Nick can’t seem to get any of his memories out on paper.
What he does know is that his fallen comrades were just regular guys
doing their duty the best they knew how, rather than the saintly
heroes that he hears about on television. Nick is determined to
speak about the men he knew -- the rookie only a few weeks on the
job, the commanding senior officer everyone looked up to, the
wisecracking comedian, and the inspirational leader who was his best
friend -- without overblown proclamations about their noble
sacrifice.
The
Guys can hardly be faulted
for its decision to confront 9/11 on an individual, rather than a
sweeping historical, scale. But once the film’s predictable
pattern has been established -- Nick reluctantly begins remembering
one of his colleagues, Joan coaxes more information out of him about
each guy, Joan types up the eulogy and Nick reads it aloud, and then
Joan tries to sort through her thoughts about 9/11 at her laptop
before the cycle begins anew -- Simpson and Nelson’s tidy
screenplay begins to lose a much-needed sense of urgency and
surprise. The repetitiveness of this structure doesn’t completely
hinder our ability to sympathize with Nick (only a callous soul
could feel no sorrow while watching him struggle through this
torturous process) but it does sabotage any dramatic momentum the
film might have. Rather than building toward a revelatory climax,
the film merely duplicates itself by recounting further stories of
lives cut tragically short.
Not to say that the film’s
narrative monotony isn’t occasionally interrupted by images and
scenes of tender, insightful grace. As Joan sits at her computer
trying to make sense of the attacks (words being the only tool she
has at her disposal), we hear her thoughts in voice-over as her
prose -- white letters against a black background -- literally
appears on screen. This blunt presentation of her thoughts ("Are you
OK?" "When do we go back to normal?" "I know you absorb some of the
toxins listening to the pain") not only conveys the rawness and
desperation of Joan’s laments, but also compels the audience to
examine their own feelings of guilt, loss, and anger. Joan and Nick
are searching for a "reason" that so many lives were lost in
9/11’s sudden flash of light, fire, and rubble, and the appearance
of Joan’s words implicates us in this pursuit for answers.
Of course, there are no easy
answers, and The Guys
wisely doesn’t try to posit any. At one point in their talks, Nick
reveals that he has spent years learning to dance. Before we know
it, he’s holding Joan in his arms, guiding her through a tender
tango around the living room. The scene, as Joan quickly reveals to
us, never happened except in her mind’s eye. But what this
imaginative diversion represents is something The
Guys all too frequently tells, rather than shows, its audience:
how two people from different worlds can discover common ground, and
survive by finding a sturdy shoulder to lean on. |
Directed
by:
Jim Simpson
Starring:
Sigourney Weaver
Anthony La Paglia
Irene Walsh
Jim Simpson
Written
by:
Anne Nelson
Rated:
PG - Parental
Guidance Suggested.
Some material may
not be appropriate
for children.
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