RICK
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
***1/2 (out of ****)
If you consider "rigoletto" to be something you'd find on an Olive Garden
menu you might not fully appreciate the finer points of Curtiss Clayton's "Rick,"
a revisionist retelling of the Giuseppe Verdi opera in which a woman dressed
as a man winds up in the sack. But you don't need to know "Rigoletto" to fully
savor "Rick" (or "rrrrRick" according to its opening credits), since the film
is a distinctive experience in its own right.
Yes, "Rigoletto" is a tragedy and so is Clayton's film, one that stars
Bill Pullman as the jester Rick O'Lett, Agnes Bruckner ("Blue Car") as his daughter
Eve, and Aaron Stanford as the Duke. "Rick"'s clearly not for everyone's tastes--it's
dark and weathered and weird and there's not a single person to root for in
it--but it grabbed my attention from the get-go and if it weren't for a comparatively
luster-free third act, in which the darkness and the weirdness turn inappropriately
mainstream, we'd be looking at one of the best films of the year.
As it is "Rick" will remain one of my favorites of 2004 for its sheer divisiveness.
Clayton's film exists in its own surreal, corporate world of extreme male
chauvinism, where an "Image"-conscious Rick and his much younger boss Duke delight
in chastising their female co-workers with a spry, bitter banter. When Rick's
nine o'clock arrives (Sandra Oh, nicely projecting lowercase rather than all
caps for a change), Rick turns backtalk into in-your-face humiliation, ridiculing
his interviewee for corporate sport. The degradation continues later on when
Rick and Duke, boasting about the day's put-downs at a sleazy watering hole
where male clients check out their female counterparts' counter parts via videocams,
are served by Oh's waitress. Fired on the spot for brattling with the clientele,
Michelle damns Rick with a Chinese curse... although her grandparents are actually
Japanese.
Rick's daughter Eve, on the other hand, with whom the corporate ax man
shares a creepily close relationship, likes to hang out in Internet sex chat
rooms using the handle Vixxxen, coyly e-sparring with a user called BigBoss.
When Rick figures out the connection, he makes a sleazy corporate Buck (Dylan
Baker) eliminate the object of Eve's online affections but Verdi's pre-text
ensures this unique, monstrously perverse film will eschew anything close to
a sappy ending.
"Rick" is conceived by Daniel Handler, creator of the "Lemony Snicket"
series of children's books (look for a big screen Jim Carrey variant this Christmas),
and his macabre, mordant sense of humor cuts through the film like a maniacal
CEO who's just discovered the benefits of attrition. Director Clayton handles
Handler's vision with fiendish flair, keeping "Rick" off-kilter but immensely
entertaining (including its delicate yuletide accordion score).
Pullman, again, pulls off a perfect comic performance, a twitchy, volatile
mess of a man with a dead wife, a promiscuous daughter (Bruckner goes for the
knit cap again), and a penchant for callousness that goes way beyond the conference
room. Pullman's been pulling off these kinds of oddballs for years (in films
like "Igby Goes Down," "Lake Placid," and "Lost Highway"); quirky, infectious
characters that play it close to the surface, threatening to crack at any moment.
He's delightful here... delightful, with a wicked, cynical edge.
Rick's all his and between them Clayton and Handler make "Rick" all ours.
--
David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf"
online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
========== X-RAMR-ID: 38641 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1321527 X-RT-TitleID: 10004462 X-RT-SourceID: 878 X-RT-AuthorID: 1393 X-RT-RatingText: 3.5/4
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