Reviews

It is utterly incomprehensible how this managed to make it to the big screen. The script fails to provide the background of any of the characters or the politics of the time in which they functioned, rendering the story superfluous. Guy Pearce is too "male" in every sense of the word to effectively portray the androgyny of Warhol. Hayden Christensen - a wonderful actor when he gets the chance - performs off the page as if he's still in front of the Star Wars green screen.

Miller - so promising in "Alfie" - is abysmal. Her performance betrays a stark lack of acting experience. Granted, the script and direction give her nothing to work with, but her countenance displays no knowledge whatsoever of the historical time frame in which Edie lived or what made her tick. Granted these are matters on which an actor should have their own personal "take". But Miller doesn't even bother doing that. She looks happy in herself just to be walking across the screen and she strives for nothing else. It's no surprise at all that she lost out to the lesser known Lena Headey for the lead female role in "300".

The screen lights up towards the end for 60 seconds, when Meredith Ostrom appears as Nico. Unfortunately she disappears just as quickly again.

The final cut is an atrocious insult to Sedgwick, Warhol, Dylan, the Velvet Underground and the audience itself.

Just as Brendan Gleeson's character comes face to face with his mysterious double in "The Tiger's Tail", having seen the movie I am wondering if John Boorman himself has a doppelganger who directed this Hammer-style turkey. Where is the director of "Deliverance", "Point Blank" and "The General"? He's certainly not behind the camera lens in scenes where a supposedly famous property developer is charged in court with a plethora of offenses, yet his double is down the road running his property empire in his name and not even the most buffoonish of cops, judiciary, gutter press and nosy old ladies take one whit of notice; he's not present whenever Kim Cattrall speaks, her accent veering within scenes between Samantha's from SATC and Sean Connery's in "The Untouchables"; and he couldn't possibly have approved the unbelievably cozy pat and self-indulgent ending which leaves numerous significant story threads left hanging.

The film is supposed to be a commentary on the dark side of the Irish economic boom and the ham fisted manner in which its benefits have been consumed and distributed. However the dogmatic exposition of these points within numerous scenes (and an appearance by a well known pseud Irish restaurant critic) confirms the movie as being cynically and deliberately designed to appeal to mid 1980s Irish social democrats who fought for change against a right wing Catholic Church and puppet government through the medium of a liberal, self-knowing and self-reverential press. They now find that winning the battle meant also losing their prized high moral ground and glowing (self) adoration. This wasn't part of the master plan at all. They can't take the fact that economic growth for all means no one pays them a smidgen of attention or glory anymore and Boorman has made this movie especially for them.

Round this out with a padding of grizzled Irish acting washouts desperate for a paycheck and a "marriage movies and motherhood" article in a Sunday news-rag and you have what possibly is the most cynical, elitist and artistically challenged Irish movie of modern times.

Spielberg's new movie is a must-see; a metaphor for 9-11 and a commentary on the collective psyche. He has capitalized on his directorial star power to deliver a intimate picture set against an alien backdrop, the structure of which places the viewer right in the action rather than as a detached observer and thankfully devoid of the standard narrative filters of the military, government and media.

It is not a picture than can be described in terms of plot - to do so would diminish its visceral and emotional power and classify it alongside conventional summer fare. This is cinema at its absolute best - don't miss.