Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton, looking more like 10 miles of bad road than usual) accepts an apartment swap offer from a much more successful writer and moves to London. He meets a local drunk loser who fancies himself a darts pro named Keith, and his more well-to-do drinking chum, Guy. All three of them are entranced by Nicola (Amber Heard) when she steps into the pub, Young in no small part because she lives directly above him, and because she's had a vision of her death, including the one responsible.
Young smells a novel, so much of the movie is his overwrought narration of Nicola leading both Guy and Keith around by the nose. For Guy, she plays the naive innocent he can protect with stories of a lost friend from the orphanage. All dressed in white and big sad eyes. Being a good dad and husband is too complicated and lengthy. He wants to help someone in one quick, simple way, and then get some as a reward. Keith she greets in her underwear, sex toys prominently displayed. He can't help being a useless sleaze, barely interested in his own daughter or wife, too caught up in dreams of making it big in professional darts. The money Guy gives Nicola, thinking he's helping her help people in Burma, she gives to Keith so he doesn't get a railroad spike hammered through his nuts by some jackass (Johnny Depp) he borrowed money from to pay off a person he borrowed money from to pay off another person he borrowed money from.
Young makes the occasional suggestion Nicola just leave town, but he doesn't press, never forces the issue. It's clear she's playing him, too. He might even know it and just doesn't care. He's got his own ticking clock. So she lets him paper a room with her notebooks and sketches like it's a conspiracy board, and put a microphone under her floorboards, and he tries to turn her slow-motion car crash into some last bit of success for him.
Nicola's games are designed to wreck the two lovers, until one of them finally snaps. Which is why it never seems likely either will actually do it. Too obvious. I toyed with the idea it was going to be the British author (Jason Isaacs), who we mostly see through the several photos of himself he has around his apartment, and hear in the various condescending voicemails he leaves Young. He and Nicola knew each other, too, and she might actually have cared for him. Hard to believe from what we see of him, but maybe he's so obviously self-centered and egocentric it was refreshing to her. He didn't project any expectations onto her because he barely thought about her at all?
I think (though I'm not sure) this may have been a final gift from her to him, based on the ending. Or he's just an unscrupulous piece of shit. Either/or. For a while, I was toying with the idea this whole weird game was in Young's head. Something he cooked up under the influence of the many pills he's taking, and he just applied his ideas to people he met in the neighborhood. Turns out not to be the case.
It's not a movie where there's really anyone I like or care for. Nicola's too resigned to her fate, leaving wreckage in her wake just to reach an outcome she's concluded is inevitable. Keith's so greasy I'm amazed he doesn't accidentally light himself on fire, and Guy's a complete putz. Young is as resigned as Nicola to his fate, but chooses to be a spectator to the carnage. It's all just abstract suffering to him, plot point A creating tense conversation B. Isaacs' character is so full of himself it's amazing his head fits through doors. There's no one to really hang onto or root for, because there's not a one of them I can see myself wanting to be around for more than five minutes. Just hurry up and burn their lives to the ground already.
No comments:
Post a Comment