A Couch with a View
Video offerings from Lovell Mahan-Moutaw

If you haven't seen ZERO EFFECT, do. It may be one of the most perfect pieces of film making I've seen in my life. A mixture of absolutely superb writing and directing (Jake Kasdan, son of Lawrence), good acting, excellent set design and cinematography, and a damn good soundtrack. I can't pick a single part of this movie that wasn't extraordinarily good.

This is the story of Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman), the best private eye in the world. He does not meet his own clients, but sends his attorney and assistant Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller) to get the low down and to explain how Zero works. Daryl Zero is a legend, he can do what others cannot. He is a master of disguise, speaks sixteen languages, and is more observant than it would seem is humanly possible. When he is working, he is Superman. When he is not working, he is socially inept, almost paralyzingly paranoid, and more than a little bit strange.

Zero and Arlo get involved in a blackmailing case that is solved early, light work for Zero. Nevertheless, Zero doesn't just want to know whodunit, he wants to know why. This leads to a bit of romance and several twists and turns. It is suspenseful and thrilling. There is intermittent voice-over as Zero goes through parts of the case, which teaches us how to be a good private eye. (He is writing his memoirs as a teaching piece and reciting it to us.)

Pullman is absolutely fantastic as Zero, sexy and strange and more than a little vulnerable. Stiller is Stiller - I haven't seen this guy do anything bad since I became aware of him years ago. When I was taking a teleplay class, I was told to avoid voice-over. It is usually poorly done and normally adds nothing. The professor gave us one example of it being done well, the TV series Spenser for Hire. I liked Spenser, but only because I had a perv on Robert Urich at the time.

The voice-over in Zero Effect is so good as to be actually awesome. When Zero explained how to do a search, I had to rewind it several times because it was so brilliant. It would seem that voice-over works well only in the detective/suspense genre. This was not a fluke, because the entirety of the writing is marvelous. The story is great and the dialogue better. Thoughtful, philosophical, yet spare lines like: "You don't buy silence, you rent it," or Zero: " I can't read her. I never know what she is thinking," Arlo: "It's usually like that in the beginning," are sprinkled throughout the movie.

The locations and set designs were fabulous as well. When Arlo has a conversation with the blackmailee, Stark (Ryan O'Neal), they are sitting in a booth in a restaurant with what looks like chicken wire above it. Stark is pinned, caged in, caught. The camera catches Arlo over the top of the wire, looking down on him. This would normally cast the character in an inferior light. Instead we are given the sense that he isn't in the cage, only visiting it, as he is morally superior to its occupant.

When Zero and Arlo talk about the case, they do it from a rooftop or the top of a parking lot looking over the city - a city that is open to Zero, spread wide to him, because no one can keep their secrets from him. When Gloria (Kim Dickens, the love interest) and Zero go out to dinner, they go to a fifties-style restaurant and share a chocolate shake, with two straws. It is bright and fresh and indicates the innocence and prosperity of the 50s. Yet Zero relates his dark past to Gloria in that restaurant, a history so vile and sad as to make a mockery of the place in which the tale is told.

Kasdan chooses to keep the story light, slightly comedic. But you never get the sense that he doesn't take his characters seriously. He spends a great deal of effort, if not time (which is another indication of how good the writing is), giving us insight into who they are and why they do what they do. Overall, a very pleasant experience.

GATTACA was Oscar-nominated for Set Decoration and Art Direction in '97. That was the year of Titanic, so it didn't win, but it deserved to. It is an absolutely beautiful movie to watch. The clothes, hair, furniture, buildings, clubs, cars, external shots...everything is so well put together as to be often breathtaking.

The story is weird and frightening. It begins in the middle and the suspense is rather tight. The idea is interesting. Soon, we will be judged by our genetics. You will know from birth what you will be, when you are expected to die, what will be your inclinations. If you are a "godchild" (created by two people making love), then odds are you won't have very good prospects. You might get a bad heart, have bad eyesight, be prone to alcoholism, etc. The best bet is to have your child be genetically engineered. You can take out all the bad and just keep in all of the good. Discrimination, then, centers around whether you are "valid" or "in-valid" - whether you have a system, helix, genetic structure that allows for things to happen - or if you are engineered to the literal skin of your teeth.

Our hero Vincent (Ethan Hawke) wants to go to space, but as a "godchild" or "in-valid", he is not able to procure a position that would get him into space exploration. Instead, he cleans toilets. He pays someone to find him a "valid" whose life he can take over. Enter Jerome (Jude Law), a "valid" with a score of "9.2" - he is the best of the best, engineered perfection. Unfortunately, he is suicidal - he stepped in front of a car and ended up crippled rather than dead.

Vincent/Jerome goes to work at Gattaca and he does very well. He is scheduled to go ino space, but then a Director at Gattaca gets killed and one of Vincent/Jerome's eyelashes is found, which makes him the top suspect. Yet he is parading right in front of their noses. I won't discuss the plot further just to say that the suspense builds from the beginning, so by the time things come to a twist, you practically want to turn the damn thing off or fast forward to get some relief.

I have to say that some of the dialogue was stilted and even silly (including some of Uma Thurman's delivery) and there were many editing holes (changing hairstyles and a tear in Ethan Hawke's suit, to name just two). The conclusion of the murder plotline is kind of ridiculous, and the romance is rather hurried. Also, I know this is a movie, but if they can do so much with genes, eyelashes, skin cells...couldn't they have robots to clean? Or eye correction surgery (or other types of surgery) that doesn't leave scars? Or wheel chairs that a person doesn't have to push on their own power?

These little things (and sometimes not-so-little things) don't really take away from the overall enjoyment of this movie. Instead, with Ethan Hawke and Jude Law leading the way with great, understated performances, you mostly forget that other stuff. It is a weird kind of feel-good, dream-a-little-dream movie, written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who wrote The Truman Show. I'd recommend a rental of Gattaca...you'll have great fun.

CineScene, 2001