
A Hidden Life
It’s one of the year’s best and most distinctive movies, though sure to be divisive, even alienating for some viewers, in the manner of nearly…
It’s one of the year’s best and most distinctive movies, though sure to be divisive, even alienating for some viewers, in the manner of nearly…
Bombshell is both light on its feet and a punch in the gut.
Roger Ebert on James Ivory's "Howards End".
"The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens…
An article about today's noon premiere of a new movie about architect Benjamin Marshall at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
An article about the screening of Horace Jenkins' "Cane River" on Friday, November 1st, at the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles.
Scout Tafoya's video essay series about maligned masterpieces celebrates Steven Soderbergh's Solaris.
An article about today's noon premiere of a new movie about architect Benjamin Marshall at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
An FFC on Gavin Hood's Official Secrets.
A celebration of Yasujiro Ozu, as written by a Far Flung Correspondent from Egypt.
Our contributors share their Top 10 lists for the best films of 2019.
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including Hustlers, Ready or Not, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and a Criterion edition of Until the End…
One day they are stripping wallpaper from the walls, and they discover a message that was left more than 60 years ago by Maxie, a flapper who once lived in the house. We know the message is from Maxie because Ruth Gordon, the next-door neighbor, drops in and tells them Maxie once had a bit role in a silent film and then died tragically at a young age.
Jan and Nick do what any normal couple would do. They rent a videocassette of the old silent film. And apparently their act of seeing Maxie's old performance, in Maxie's old house, causes the psychic energies to flow in such a way that Maxie appears and possesses Jan's body. Jan begins to talk in Maxie's penetrating nasal screech and she starts using a lot of 1920s slang. But she still looks exactly like Glenn Close, who plays both Jan and Maxie.
Advertisement
Nick (played by Mandy Patinkin) does not at first figure out what is happening. This leads to some embarrassment, as when Maxie suddenly occupies Jan's body during an office party and throws her drink down the dress of Nick's boss (Valerie Curtin, as a sex-mad harridan). There are other horrible moments, as when Jan becomes Maxie at bedtime, and when Maxie forces Jan to audition for a TV commercial. Maxie can be shocking, but she is not anywhere near as shocking as the utter, complete lack of wit and intelligence in this movie, which goes its entire length without producing one single clever twist on its boring premise.
As a service to the screenwriter and director, I herewith supply some ideas they might have used: (1) Jan becoming Maxie during sex, to Nick's consternation; (2) The bishop turning out to be Maxie's old beau, before he went into the seminary; (3) Maxie in a San Francisco leather bar; (4) Nick preferring Maxie to boring old Jan; (5) Nick being possessed by Maxie's old boyfriend, who goes after her, only to find the boring yuppie, Jan, in his arms; (6) Maxie enlisting her friends from the Other Side to possess everyone else at the office party, so that W.C. Fields is talking with Calvin Coolidge, etc.
I offer these possibilities only to illuminate the fact that "Maxie" does as little with its original inspiration as is humanly possible. This is the sort of movie where, if Maxie had any brains, she'd appear in Jan's body, take one look at the script, and decide she was better off dead.
The best films of 2019, as chosen by the staff of RogerEbert.com.
A review of three premieres from Telluride.
This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a fr...
A review of the newest film by Quentin Tarantino.