The Paperboy. (15.)
Directed by Lee Daniels.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray and Scott Glenn. 107mins
It may not be one of the year’s great films but it is one of the ones that I look back on with the most fondness. This Deep South miscarriage of justice drama that was Lee Daniels’ follow up to Precious, is a film that holds you jaw-dropped and wide-eyed for the best part of two hours.
Two crusading journalists, one white (McC), the other black (Oyelowo) march into a late 60s Florida backwater determined to prove that a local redneck swamp dweller (Cusack) was innocent of the murder of the local sheriff. Normally such films would keep you interested with the question of the man’s innocent but here you are kept spellbound by your disbelief at what these big name actors get up to, including the moment when Nicole Kidman does a wee on Zac Efron’s face
It is the kind of thing that suggests stern faces and earnest righteousness but Daniels is aiming at Southern Gothic Melodrama. Thus it is populated entirely by repressed rutting stags who are so much on heat that it has frazzled their brains and their capacity to act rationally. This is an Oscar Pleader on a Hot Tin Roof.
Any notion of credibility is sunk the moment Kidman sashays into frame in a short dress and gaudy outfit playing a white trash belle who corresponds with Death Row inmates. She is preposterous and ridiculous, but preposterous and ridiculous is an M.O. that works for Kidman. She sets the bar for just about the entire cast all of whom throw themselves about trying to abase themselves for art. Everybody is to some extent made to look foolish and yet triumphant.
McConaughey is particularly good. His return from celebrity clowndom is on a par with Ben Affleck’s and he has become an accomplished scene stealer. That southern drawl of his is now so protracted and elongated, it is as if each word is being subjugated to a seedy strip search before being released. It is impossible for the other performers to top him, though that doesn’t stop them hurling themselves into the contest.
Daniels shoots it all in period “bad” movie style, with washed out colours and jerky ugly zoom shots. There is a sex scene which is intercut with shots of beasts in the swamp and suddenly we’re in Russ Meyer territory (maybe we were all along.) It plays like one of Tarantino’s Grindhouse homage movies, but what exactly is being ironically reminisced? A film where a prestigious cast play a series of cruel shallow stereotypes and perform a series of degrading acts – is this a whiteploitation movie?
Watching this trashing of southern gothic is deliriously entertaining yet I can’t help wishing they had trashed a different story. The script is based on a novel by Pete Dexter, an accomplished novelist and screenwriter, who is probably most famous for Paris Trout, made into a film starring Dennis Hopper. He is credited as co-screenwriter here but you have to wonder if he’s happy with what Daniels has done to his book. Even this lurid parody shows that it has a very strong story that would have made a very compelling drama if done straight. Weren’t there any John Grisham going spare for Daniels to take apart?
Directed by Lee Daniels.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray and Scott Glenn. 107mins
It may not be one of the year’s great films but it is one of the ones that I look back on with the most fondness. This Deep South miscarriage of justice drama that was Lee Daniels’ follow up to Precious, is a film that holds you jaw-dropped and wide-eyed for the best part of two hours.
Two crusading journalists, one white (McC), the other black (Oyelowo) march into a late 60s Florida backwater determined to prove that a local redneck swamp dweller (Cusack) was innocent of the murder of the local sheriff. Normally such films would keep you interested with the question of the man’s innocent but here you are kept spellbound by your disbelief at what these big name actors get up to, including the moment when Nicole Kidman does a wee on Zac Efron’s face
It is the kind of thing that suggests stern faces and earnest righteousness but Daniels is aiming at Southern Gothic Melodrama. Thus it is populated entirely by repressed rutting stags who are so much on heat that it has frazzled their brains and their capacity to act rationally. This is an Oscar Pleader on a Hot Tin Roof.
Any notion of credibility is sunk the moment Kidman sashays into frame in a short dress and gaudy outfit playing a white trash belle who corresponds with Death Row inmates. She is preposterous and ridiculous, but preposterous and ridiculous is an M.O. that works for Kidman. She sets the bar for just about the entire cast all of whom throw themselves about trying to abase themselves for art. Everybody is to some extent made to look foolish and yet triumphant.
McConaughey is particularly good. His return from celebrity clowndom is on a par with Ben Affleck’s and he has become an accomplished scene stealer. That southern drawl of his is now so protracted and elongated, it is as if each word is being subjugated to a seedy strip search before being released. It is impossible for the other performers to top him, though that doesn’t stop them hurling themselves into the contest.
Daniels shoots it all in period “bad” movie style, with washed out colours and jerky ugly zoom shots. There is a sex scene which is intercut with shots of beasts in the swamp and suddenly we’re in Russ Meyer territory (maybe we were all along.) It plays like one of Tarantino’s Grindhouse homage movies, but what exactly is being ironically reminisced? A film where a prestigious cast play a series of cruel shallow stereotypes and perform a series of degrading acts – is this a whiteploitation movie?
Watching this trashing of southern gothic is deliriously entertaining yet I can’t help wishing they had trashed a different story. The script is based on a novel by Pete Dexter, an accomplished novelist and screenwriter, who is probably most famous for Paris Trout, made into a film starring Dennis Hopper. He is credited as co-screenwriter here but you have to wonder if he’s happy with what Daniels has done to his book. Even this lurid parody shows that it has a very strong story that would have made a very compelling drama if done straight. Weren’t there any John Grisham going spare for Daniels to take apart?
