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April 07, 2008
An Underdog Remake
One of my favorite films of all time, Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 understated masterpiece, Everybody's Fine, is being remade and just got a domestic pick-up from Miramax, which I believe has had the right of first refusal on an English remake since they (under The Weinsteins) released the film in 1990. (story from Variety.... thanks to Joe Leydon for the tip.)
The film has been adapted in english and will be directed by Kirk Jones, best known for Waking Ned Devine.
Oh... I hope it holds together. The original, which stars an aging but magnificent Marcello Mastroianni has never been released on DVD, though in a recent US trip, Tornatore told me that a DVD release in Italy was imminent. (No indication of an Italian release date on the web tonight.)
The story, basically, is of a widower with 5 kids, who sets up a vacation for all of them by the shore, where they went as a family when the kids were young. None show up. So he decides to visit each. And each had been lying to him in different ways about their lives.
Mastroianni plays the part fairly broadly, with wild wide eyes behind coke bottle glasses. I hope DeNiro doesn't go that way. It would ruin the film... and DeNiro could have his next award-worthy work here after years of self-parody. If DeNiro plays him real - and no one can do it better - it will be funny and heartbreaking, which it is with Mastroianni.
The challenge of buying Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell as siblings will be lessened if they stick with the original, which has none of the siblings in the same place at the same time, as I recall.
If Jones is smart, he'll keep the spectacular score by Ennio Morricone.
This is one of those movies that will make the cynics cringe. Tone is the great challenge... and Tornatore is one of the masters of tone... sweet but never saccharine. The danger in this remake is trying too hard. Or, as with Shall We Dance - a film whose original shares a great ennui with this one - missing the tone and the depth and just playing the story in the most obvious ways.
Fingers crossed.
Posted by poland at April 7, 2008 10:23 PM
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