You can't help wondering how many times this story has been told in print, on stage, and in film. Weren't there independent redintegrations of this Medieval plot by Marlowe and Goethe? This version comes to us from Steven Vincent Benet and Archibald MacLeash, updated to the current time. It's entertaining still but all very familiar.
Alec Baldwin is a luckless, penniless, sexless unpublished author who just can't catch a break like his college Dan Aykroyd, who has written a highly successful novel, "A Feeling of Loss." All he has are a few fellow sufferers like Barry Miller, who is always willing to tell Baldwin the truth about his writing.
An agent, Anthony Hopkins, tells him to write better but Baldwin is going berserk. Back in his shabby apartment he cries out that he'd sell his soul to succeed. Enter Jennifer Love Hewitt as a sexy devil. She gives him the success he pines for. Cabs stop magically to pick him up out of a crowd. An editor, Kim Cattrall, reads his manuscript and decides its worth a first printing of 100,000. That's a lot. You're lucky to get 5,000. But she insists on a few changes. Baldwin agrees, even though the alterations turn his work into the kind of trash that sells. It begins with the title, "A Loss of Feeling." Of course it's a ripoff of Aykroyd's book, "A Feeling of Loss," but that's the point. There follow a number of sequels. "A Feeling of Greater Loss," or something, winding up with "A Certain Numbness In the Extremities." That's pretty funny.
Alas, there is a long courtroom scene at the end in which Hopkins defends Baldwin and Hewitt is the prosecutor. The trial is a fantasy. The jury consists of departed writers like Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker. I don't know how this scene was originally written but here it comes across as maundering and uninventive. "This is the world God gave us," Hewitt orates. Smooth violins in the background tell us that this is all very important, in case we didn't get it. I think it's mush. "Death -- well, death gives us a chance to sum up our lives." Baldwin directed this and there's nothing wrong with his work, either as director or actor. Anthony Hopkins is a remarkable actor. He convinces us with such little effort, even when the lines he's forced to read are idiotic. Hewitt is a bit of an embarrassment among the pros. She looks and sounds like a pretty young girl in a high school production. It's hard to pin down just where she goes wrong, but, by contrast, we can check out Kim Cattrall in the part of the shallow and sexy editor. Hewitt looks cute, while Cattrall projects a sleek kind of professionalism.
I kind of enjoyed the film except for the last twenty minutes when it bogged down into seriousness. It should have remained the up-tempo screwball comedy that it started out as. Frank Capra would have done wonders with it back in the 30s.
Alec Baldwin is a luckless, penniless, sexless unpublished author who just can't catch a break like his college Dan Aykroyd, who has written a highly successful novel, "A Feeling of Loss." All he has are a few fellow sufferers like Barry Miller, who is always willing to tell Baldwin the truth about his writing.
An agent, Anthony Hopkins, tells him to write better but Baldwin is going berserk. Back in his shabby apartment he cries out that he'd sell his soul to succeed. Enter Jennifer Love Hewitt as a sexy devil. She gives him the success he pines for. Cabs stop magically to pick him up out of a crowd. An editor, Kim Cattrall, reads his manuscript and decides its worth a first printing of 100,000. That's a lot. You're lucky to get 5,000. But she insists on a few changes. Baldwin agrees, even though the alterations turn his work into the kind of trash that sells. It begins with the title, "A Loss of Feeling." Of course it's a ripoff of Aykroyd's book, "A Feeling of Loss," but that's the point. There follow a number of sequels. "A Feeling of Greater Loss," or something, winding up with "A Certain Numbness In the Extremities." That's pretty funny.
Alas, there is a long courtroom scene at the end in which Hopkins defends Baldwin and Hewitt is the prosecutor. The trial is a fantasy. The jury consists of departed writers like Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker. I don't know how this scene was originally written but here it comes across as maundering and uninventive. "This is the world God gave us," Hewitt orates. Smooth violins in the background tell us that this is all very important, in case we didn't get it. I think it's mush. "Death -- well, death gives us a chance to sum up our lives." Baldwin directed this and there's nothing wrong with his work, either as director or actor. Anthony Hopkins is a remarkable actor. He convinces us with such little effort, even when the lines he's forced to read are idiotic. Hewitt is a bit of an embarrassment among the pros. She looks and sounds like a pretty young girl in a high school production. It's hard to pin down just where she goes wrong, but, by contrast, we can check out Kim Cattrall in the part of the shallow and sexy editor. Hewitt looks cute, while Cattrall projects a sleek kind of professionalism.
I kind of enjoyed the film except for the last twenty minutes when it bogged down into seriousness. It should have remained the up-tempo screwball comedy that it started out as. Frank Capra would have done wonders with it back in the 30s.