The Magnificent Ambersons (2002)

Ill-advised TV movie remake is a swing and a miss
Booth Tarkington's 1918 novel, "The Magnificent Ambersons" is far from being magnificent. Here is a taste of it:

"But Lucy who sat beside him lifted ineffable eyes from him [George] to her father, and shook her head.

"`No, just take his hand--gently!'

"She was radiant.

"But for Eugene another radiance filled the room. He knew that he had been true at last to his true love, and that through him she had brought her boy under shelter again. Her eyes would look wistful no more."

What can one say about such leaden phrases as, "ineffable eyes" and "true at last to his true love"? That is weepy, inept pap. The rest of the book is hardly better.

On the assumption that this production does faithfully follow Orson Welles' 1942 shooting script, it is clear that he tightened up the book and made improvements throughout. However, Tarkington's original sow's ear became no more than a much improved sow's ear. The screenplay was no silk purse.

Welles' movie of "The Magnificent Ambersons," mangled and mutilated though it is, retains about itself a tattered air of magnificense and--yes!--art that places it far above the book and even the screenplay. It has an ensemble feeling that dates back to the old Mercury Theater days. The uniformly excellent actors, all united in style and goal, were "One equal temper of heroic hearts," as Tennyson might have said. The film's overall design and cinematography achieved something far beyond anything that Tarkington might have imagined. And more important than any of that, although much more subtle, is the unique, pervasive and unmistakable presence of Orson Welles--that truly ineffable man.

In 1943, the hacked up studio version of the film won academy awards for Agnes Moorehead as best supporting actress, for best black-and-white art direction and interior decoration, for best black-and-white cinematography (Stanley Cortez) and for best picture.

Now we come to this TV movie. It offers only the original screenplay, none of the rest--and in bland TV color, yet! The net effect is similar to that of attempting to reproduce the Mona Lisa on an Etch-A-Sketch. What were they thinking?

This new TV movie arose out of a mediocre conception and was executed by mediocre talents to achieve a mediocre goal. I give it two stars because it at least has two virtues: no semi-clad performers are required to eat bugs on a remote jungle island and Simon Cowell is nowhere in sight.

A couple of minor additions
The review at the top, Not Quite Magnificent, captures my attitude perfectly. While some things work, and the backstory of the declining family is more interesting than the self-absorbed creeps who are front and center, this thing flops around gasping for air for a painfully long time. Why, I kept asking myself.

I have seen many of these actors in other films, and they are all competent or good. But here, every note, every speech, every aside feels forced and contrived. They even walk woodenly. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a new one for me, is just awful, a tedious and exasperating automaton who is without a trace of humanity. OK, maybe that's the character, but why does he talk like that? And I learn he is Irish. So why, in a huge sprawling film like this, do they use an Irish actor to create a Midwestern voice? It is all wrong, never once sounding like a person. Emblematic of much more.

Masterpiece Theater uses skilled actors who capture the nuances of their characters and make them spring alive. This was the most stagnant production I've ever endured. The actors are usually standing stiffly or glaring. Even the dancing was stolid. Four turgid hours of clumsiness. So if everyone is awful, the pacing is comatose, and the whole thing is chilly and cold, it must be the director. Never have I been so aware of good intentions gone awry. One wonders what Welles would have produced wtih a similar budget and length, but certianly not this mess.

Not quite magnificent
I enjoyed this in some ways. The story is good. The themes are interesting -- the passing of an era with the coming of the motor car, class snobbery, etc.

The actors were mostly quite good and very watchable. I loved Bruce Greenwood, especially, from the first scene---he's handsome, charming, buoyant, jovial, and good-hearted-- a true romantic hero. Gretchen Mol, as his sunny, beautiful daughter appears to have grown up in the same family as her father, given her extremely happy personality. (When you're watching something as long as this is, it's vital to like the folks you're looking at!)

The photography is good. Some shots are a little overly arty for my taste but it didn't really bother me. I enjoyed the opening snowy scene with the horse-drawn carriages pulling up to the mansion--ah the good life--while it lasted! The ballroom scenes are fun, many of the indoor scenes are rich with interesting detail. (When you're watching something this long, it's important to like the stuff you're looking at...)

The one thing that bothered me enough to subtract two stars from my rating was the "phenomenon" of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as George Minifer. I haven't seen Rhys-Meyers in any other films so I don't know if it was his fault or if it was that of the director...but I found him so unpleasant to watch that it soured the whole experience for me. I want to read the book to see how it was handled in the original. Here, there is no hint of any goodness in this horrible fellow, which makes his final "redemption" highly unlikely.

It's also really, really unbelievable that a young woman as beautiful, happy and bright as Lucy (and with such a good father!) could possibly fall for such a creep. I didn't find him in the least good looking, with his perpetual sneer and snobby voice. The fact that he was let to develop in such an extremely anti-social way didn't make sense among this family that seemed otherwise to be quite sensible.

I agree, too, that the erotic stuff between Georgie and Isabel seems gratuitous and rather creepy. Isabel didn't seem like a complete dummy so it was hard to understand her bad decisions about men.

If you can put up with the over-the-top noxious behavior of the centerpiece of this film (Rhys-Meyers as George) you may enjoy this more than I did.