Thoughts on Twilight

 

Courtesy Paramount Pictures/IMDB

"You know, Harry, the thing that you just don't get about Jack and Catherine is, they live for each other. It's like they have the starring roles in their own lives. And you're just a bit player. Me, too. It's their love story, not yours. You don't get to kiss the girl in the end. She's somebody else's girl."

Every so often, I imagine a remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? This time around, Jane has never fully left the public eye. She profits a little from the notoriety of Blanche's accident (in my version, Edwin is a podcaster focused on Hollywood history and scandals), but mostly supports the sisters by participating in autograph shows and making low budget movies. My movie would still allow Jane to be a Bette Davis-style villainess, but it would also dig a little deeper into what's involved with being a third act actor.

Those thoughts returned as I watched Twilight, a mystery that could potentially be much better if it wasn't a mystery. Directed by Robert Benton, who co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Russo, Twilight involves an ex-cop, ex-private detective, Harry Ross (Paul Newman). Wounded, but not sexually dysfunctional, because of an incident involving then-teenage Mel Ames (Reese Witherspoon) and his gun, Harry is the long-term houseguest and houseman of Mel's parents. Catherine (Susan Sarandon) and Jack (Gene Hackman) may be washed up as movie stars, not to mention callous, deceitful and pathethic, but they do love each other.

"I said I loved my husband enough that I would kill for him, Harry, not that I did. Now let me ask you something. Do you believe me?"

Nobody in Twilight's impressive ensemble gives a bad performance, but some are negatively impacted by the script. The worst victim is Giancarlo Esposito, who plays a moronic would-be detective colleague of Harry's. Sadly, Sarandon isn't far behind. In at least two pivotal scenes, Catherine seems to be blatantly performing for Harry, yet he never calls attention to it.* Hackman fares better, since he has pathos to play. Jack is once again terminally ill, hurt by the discovery that Harry and Catherine had sex and so far gone from his bad boy days captured in vintage movies. Speaking of the past, this is where I mention that Twilight includes nudity from Witherspoon and Liev Schreiber. Naturally, she shows more. After Reese became a romantic comedy star, that sort of thing seemed no longer possible (and wasn't for nearly 20 years after). I'm amused by the contrast between Reese's unmistakable nudity and Susan's rather obvious body double.

*I dunno, maybe I've seen too many movies. I kept thinking of the "I'm not acting!" exchange from Mommie Dearest. Clearly I need to see a Faye Dunaway flick, and fast.

Harry is detatched from two worlds. There's the A list, which Catherine, Jack and (unofficially) ex-studio fixer Raymond (James Garner) were a part of**. The law enforcement environment has people ranging from Verna (Stockard Channing), who might as well wear a hat saying "Girl Harry'll End Up With," and Captain Egan (John Spencer, wasted) to "Mucho" (Margo Martindale), parole officer, blackmail partner and apparent bed buddy of Jeff (Schreiber) and Lester (M. Emmet Walsh), the cop who could never quite prove his idea of what happened to Catherine's estranged husband back in the '70s. To use a cliche, Twilight might actually be less interesting than a documentary of the cast (and producer Scott Rudin) having lunch. On the other hand, seeing Newman and Garner opposite each other is a thrill, one that's sustained for the movie's length.

**Mel might be poised to enter this millieu. Harry and Catherine's hookup and Jack's health scare happen while she's away on a low-budget movie's night shoot.

"Nice place you got here. Sure beats Los Feliz. You're up above the smog."

"Well, I like to think I'm up above a lot of things since I retired."

SPOILERS

Okay, here's what happened. Catherine and Jack had an affair 20 years prior. It's never outright said, but I get the impression that he got her pregnant with Mel. The couple married after Catherine's then-husband was accepted as having died. Billy Sullivan supposedly went for a Pacific Ocean swim and never came back. It wasn't actually like the old school A Star Is Born. Billy confronted Jack at his desert home and had a crippling fall into the empty swimming pool. Jack told Catherine and Raymond what happened and it was Raymond who fatally shot Billy, burying him on the property. Because of this, Jack and Catherine have never been able to sell the place, despite the fact they could use the money. Lester could never prove that there was foul play in Billy's death, but he teamed up with Mucho and Jeff, who was feeling vengeful after doing time for the crime of taking Mel to Mexico when she was underage. Raymond covered his, Jack and Catherine's tracks, but couldn't kill Harry, who fatally shot him. Jack and Catherine got away with reckless indifference to murder, but their punishments are his illness and her aging and imminent poverty-loneliness.

END SPOILERS

"The thing is, we're broke. My hus-"

"No. I'm broke. You and Jack are overextended. I'll explain the difference to you sometime so you'll understand."

*Catherine launches into her sad story and does some business with Harry's lighter before the two have sex*

I think the question in Twilight shouldn't have been "Whodunnit?", but "Can people stay complicit?" I guess that question was there, too, but again, I find myself considering the world outside what I watched. Suppose one of Billy Sullivan's old movies was re-released and it resulted in renewed attention over his death. What if Mel considered that Jack might not be her dad? Also, how famous are Jack and Catherine supposed to be? Suppose that she tried to counteract the publicity about Billy by exploiting Jack's illness, or worse, making him seem healthier than he is. Actually, in Twlight as it exists, Jack is more likely to do that. A favorite scene is Hackman's last. Jack lies to Harry, who's moving out, that he's feeling a lot better. "I may just beat this thing yet." Jack's TV plays one of his old movies (actually Downhill Racer). He apparently had it cued.

"Newman revealed not only the aura and insight of a savvy legend but also a surprising ambivalence about his career, some doubts about his performances and a feeling that his genuine skills had sometimes been trivialized by others because of his good looks."

-- Dinitia Smith, in a pre-release piece for The New York Times

Even with excellent costars -- Martindale's death scene is surprisingly moving -- Newman carries Twlight. While the movie doesn't go from earnest salute to genuine classic (much like Harper), it nevertheless has appeal beyond satisfying our curiosity to see if the old man still can act. Bill Desowitz, Los Angeles Times, observed that at the time of Twilight's release, Newman, Garner, Hackman, Sarandon and Channing had a combined age of nearly 320, led by Paul at 73. Newman didn't embarass himself in Twilight. As always, he's a one-man chemistry set.

"And Harry, I'm glad no one shot your pecker off."

"Me, too! *gets in car, shakes head at idea* Me, too."

Thoughts:
-- "I can't help but notice how familiar you've become with everything in this house."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $15.1 million on a budget that was anywhere between $20-37 million, this opened at No. 4 and came in at No. 102 for 1998.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "(It) appeals because we like the actors, not because we care about their characters," Roger Ebert wrote. Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, wrote that Twilight was "the flowering of that inevitable subgenre: geezer noir." Kenneth also observed that "there is a lack of energy, of punch, about the whole project that is fatal." Rita Kempley called the movie "a creaky prune noir."

-- Critic's Corner, Paul: "The plot creaks, but not Newman," Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone. "He is a consummate actor and observing him (opposite Sarandon, et al.) is something uncomming in today's movies: a privilege." "Newman's less-is-more acting technique has if anything gotten stronger over the years," Turan wrote. "The actor's presence creates involvement when he's just standing still, and he brings the perfect been-around quality." Todd McCarthy, Variety, felt "Newman's work is sly, stealthy and subtle, and his rapport with his co-stars is a pleasure to watch." Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, wasn't impressed: "Newman's cool has grown cold and tired." Owen Gleiberman agreed, calling him miscast. "Newman has always known how to play a man who has lost it (The Hustler, The Verdict). What he is constitutionally incapable of playing is a man who never had it."

-- Critic's Corner, the rest of the cast: "(Sarandon) doesn't ordinarily play creatures this vain, conniving and glossy, but she does it here with sinuous allure," Janet Maslin wrote. Turan: "The storyline and certain key characterizations (especially Sarandon's Catherine Ames) are too predictable and unconvincing." O'Sullivan: "Sarandon's lush physicality comes across here as perfunctory rather than organic ... Hackman's normally burning, unpredictable intensity gives off only the heat of an ember." Desowitz praised the "brilliant pas de deux between Newman and Hackman, with expressions saying so much more than words." Gleiberman, who'd rather than Newman and Hackman have switched roles, noted that "in certain scenes, the two actors grace the screen with a toughened if-only-we-could-go-back melancholy that's so palpable it's a little frightening." On a happier note, Kempley liked Channing, calling her "the liveliest, warmest, most entertaining performer in the bunch. Even Newman seems to light up when he shares a scene with her."

-- Today in Coincidences: Maslin's review referred to Jack and Catherine as the movie's "Tom and Daisy Buchanan." The cast included a "Young Cop" played by Jason Clarke, who went on to play Tom in 2013's The Great Gatsby.

-- Hey, It's ...!: Lewis Arquette and Clint Howard.

-- Robert Redford, who'll show up later this year with The Horse Whisperer, got to weigh in on Paul for that NYT piece. First, jokingly. "They haven't even scratched the surface at how trivial he is. The reason he's so demanding of himself is because he has no talent!" Then, seriously. "He's very serious about his craft. He's very demanding of himself. That easily gets lost in the shuffly. It's just an unhappy sidebar to our profession that it is so cosmetically confined." As Smith noted, "Mr. Redford has had much the same problem."

-- "You tell that Verna if she ever gets the urge to hump an old man, she can hump me. I'm in the book. (with Harry) Under 'Hump'."

-- Next: The Big Lebowski. On deck: The Man in the Iron Mask.