Boxoffice-November.2001

FAT GIRL (A MA SOEUR) •••1/2
Starring Altai's Reboux, Roxane
Mesquida, Arsinee Khanjian and Libero de
Rienzo.
—
Directed and written by Catherine
Breillat. Produced by Jean-Francois Lepetit.
A Cowboy release. Drama. French-language;
subtitled. Unrated. Running time: 86 min.
Catherine Breillats follow-up to 1999's
ultra-controversial sexathon "Romance"
proves that 25 years after her first film,
"Une Vraie Jeune Fille," the veteran
writer-director still has the power to shock:
"A Ma Soeur" features an erect penis, a girl
wetting herself and a vast amount of nudity—mostly
from its young stars.
Like her debut, Breillat's latest tells of a
summer of sexual discovery. Beautiful 15-
year-old Elena (Roxane Mesquida) and her
younger, larger sister Anai's (Anai's Reboux)
spend their vacation with their inattentive
parents at the seaside. One languid afternoon,
they meet handsome Italian law student
Fernando (Libero de Rienzo) at a local
cafe. While Anai's comforts herself with a
banana split, Elena shares a passionate
embrace with the stranger and a romance is
born. It is to be short-lived, but lengthy
enough for Fernando to persuade Elena to
offer him her virginity, which she does with
some initial resistance. Fernando professes
love for her, as well as his fear of the nature
of their relationship being exposed, as she is
underage.
Breillat's camera reveals a keen eye for
detail, frequently capturing the leads in
close-up, and her authentic dialogue displays
the assorted anxieties and the alternating
solidarity and rivalry that exists
between the sisters.
Notable in particular for the lengthy
scene in which Elena gives herself to
Fernando, and for a harrowing and violent
conclusion that puts the whole summer into
perspective, "Fat Girl" is
a frank and startling
feature that is hard to stomach but
harder still to forget. Chris Wiegand
***•
FROM HELL
Starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham,
Ian Holm and Robbie Coltrane. Directed by
Allen and Albert Hughes. Written by Terry
Hayes and Rafael Yglesias. Produced by
Jane Hamshcr and Don Murphy. A Fox
release. Drama. Rated R for strong violencelgore,
sexuality, language and drug content.
Running time: 120 min.
The murder by Jack the Ripper of five
London prostitutes in Whitechapel in 1888
remains one of the most enthralling criminal
cases of all time. And because the
Ripper was never caught or exposed,
numerous theories have resonated as to his
identity. Filmmakers Allen and Albert
Hughes ("Menace II Society") have taken
the tale and put an impressive, chilling spin
on it, resulting in one of the best horror
movies of recent years.
Based on Alan Moore's highlyacclaimed
graphic novel, "From Hell"
blends Royal intrigue, political plotting
and prejudicial views of the day to create a
146 (R-134) BOXOFFICE
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REVIEWS
gripping, sophisticated portrait of a
London populated by despised whores and
immigrants and run by the upper classes
who do what they will with impunity. Only
Inspector Fred Abberline (Johnny Depp),
a Sherlock Holmes with psychic visions of
the murders, cares enough to do anything
about the killings. To solve the murders,
however, he will run up against secret societies,
anti-Semitic beliefs, and his own feelings
for one of the prostitutes, Mary Kelly
(Heather Graham).
Moore's comic is actually a spare blackand-white
novel, with much background
on all the characters and their relationships.
The Hughes brothers have jettisoned
much of the backstories but not their
details—the
19th Century London of the
film feels eerily genuine—and with the aid
of Peter Deming's ravishing cinematography,
have actually captured the look of
another Moore graphic novel, the stunning
science fiction/super-hero tale,
"Watchmen."
The beauty of "From Hell," however,
lies less in its rich appearance than in its
intelligent subtext. As Abberline, who
hides his inner pain behind a stoic mask,
Depp is customarily superb, essaying a
flawless Cockney accent. Graham is equally
fine as the bewitching Kelly. (Only her
porcelain prettiness rings false; she's not as
ravaged as a Whitechapel working girl
would be.) After the mindless, formulaic
fluff of the summer's Hollywood offerings.
"From Hell" is a remarkable breath of
fresh air. Shlomo Schwartzberg
FOCUS **
Starring Laura Dern, \\ illiam H. Maty
and David Paymet: Directed by Meal Slavin.
Written by Kendrew Lascelles. Produced by
Robert A. Miller. A Paramount Classics
release. Drama. Rated PG-li for thematic
material, violence and some sexual content.
Running time: 106 min.
Doubling as a civics lesson about the
evils of intolerance, "Focus" is just too
preachy to really register. It's the kind of
heavy-handed message picture that's likely
to grab some acclaim for tackling a "difficult"
subject.
Kendrew Lascelles' script is an adaptation
of Arthur Miller's 1945 book about a
couple (William H. Macy and Laura
Dern) mistaken by their neighbors as
Jewish. Harassed by a shadowy cadre of
bigots led by Fred (Meat Loaf Aday). they
turn to a Jewish newsstand owner (David
Paymer) for solace and commiseration.
Miller uses a small New York neighborhood
as a metaphor for society at large
in the same way the Salem witch (rials of
"The Crucible" stood in for the McCarthy
heanngs. To follow through on Miller's
theme, Neal Slavin is much more overt.
board trumpeting the "American Way"
The movie is in the vein of "Crossfire,"
Ed Dmytryk's 1947 noir about three (ils
who murder a Jewish hotel clerk. At the
—
time, that theme was radical—Dmytryk
was blacklisted as "un-American" for his
tense, claustrophobic masterpiece. Fiftythree
years later, the topic is not only much
less radical, it's downright dated. And
cameraman Juan Ruiz-Anchia's romanticized
visual style—he soaks the movie in a
profusion of color—undercuts the stark
subject matter.
However, Miller's twist of putting a
WASP couple into Jewish shoes—to forcefeed
us the bigotry-can-happen-to-anyone
message— gives Macy an opportunity to
show his considerable skills. Macy's
Lawrence Newman is a milquetoast
Everyman; his go-along-to-get-along attitude
eventually puts him at odds with the
very people he hopes to placate.
In her wife role, Dern drifts in and out
of a nasally New York accent, never seeming
to be comfortable with the way the
movie blends political drama with cheery
romance (in one ill-conceived scene, Dern
and Macy splash around in a duck pond in
Central Park).
Composer Mark Adler's rich score,
highlighted by the ringing tones of a
bowed psaltery, keeps the movie from
becoming unwatchable. Paul Clinton
RAW DEAL: A QUESTION
OF CONSENT **l/2
Starring Lisa Gier King and Tony
Marzullo. Directed by Billy Corben.
Produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy
Corben. An Artisan release. Documentary.
Unrated. Running time: 98 min.
Courting controversy from festival to
festival, Billy Corben's documentary debut
is an investigation of an alleged rape at a
Florida frat house in 1999. An unusual
case to say the least—mainly because
many of that same evening's events were
captured on not only one but two separate
video cameras— it caused a massive media
feeding frenzy at the time, so it is perhaps
unsurprising that the video material has
ended up being featured in a full-length
documentary.
Stripper and mother Lisa Gier King
and another girl were hired to perform at a
party held at a frat house at the campus of
the University of Florida. King stayed the
night with the students, emerging the next
morning saying that she had been raped by
one of those present, Michael Yahraus.
Police subsequently seized the footage shot
at the house that night by some of revelers,
then—after viewing the material— actually
arrested King herself, claiming that she
had filed a false report, as the footage
showed "clearly willing and consensual
sex."
—
Offering more questions than answers,
"Raw Deal" asks what kind of proof the
video constitutes. Since so much of the
film consists of the footage shot that
evening— much of it extremely explicit and
disturbing this is a difficult film to watch
and near impossible to rate. Chris
Wiegand