The Magnificent Ambersons (2002)

Rise and fall of wealth and influence

As someone who has never seen previous version of this work either in theatre or other movie versions, I will confine this review to this particular movie. Set in late 1880s, film is full of sensuality and beautiful costumes peppered by restrained mannerisms of the period. Main story is about Amberson family who has made their money in real estate. They are old money and they know it. Isabel Amberson is a beautiful woman who chooses "safe" husband. Reliable and dull he is her safety net in the world she is so accustomed to. Their only son George is her one and only passion in her life. The two are inseparable and their co-dependency leads to almost incestuous relationship between overprotective mother and spoiled and jealous son. Death of Isabel's husband makes their relationship even more complicated. In order to restrain potential suitors from taking his beloved mother away from him, her son takes her on the indefinitely long trip around the world - until, too late, he discovers that his mother is gravely ill. Surrounding characters: Isabel's own brother and father, her sister-in-law Fanny and her flame from her youth Eugene Morgan all make interesting characters, but are all incapable of ensuring some distance between mother and her son. As family shrinks due to death and fortunes disappear due to Amberson family's inability to adjust to the new times, we see young George Amberson - spoiled, arrogant, jealous and overbearing grow to learn to be kind and caring, responsible and strong since his world of protection and privilege disappears right before his eyes. This is one of those great family sagas, deep psychological exploration of human relationships at times when world to women was a closed one - when they were vitual property of their sons and husbands, where class determined one's future in terms of their profession, marriage prospectsability to prosepr thru strong social connections. I loved the costumes and jewelry in the movie. Most actors were good, except that Jennifer Tilly acts more as a spiteful child than a sinister spinster aunt. October 27, 2008

TV movie bilge

Ten seconds in Orson Welles' film communicates more than ten minutes in this one. Everything is lost except the melodrama which is plodded through quite boringly. The middle-American haute bourgeoisie that Welles' portrayed have become Soap-Opera-land millionaires (contrast Aunt Fanny in Welles' actually making sandwiches with this Aunt Fanny being served from a silver tray) and the way in which Welles' succeeded in capturing so brilliantly what it must have felt like to watch the car eclipse the horse is gone entirely. A film masterpiece has been reduces to a second-rate version of Dynasty. Welles' film, by the way, was no doubt far superior in its uncut original state--but the truncated version still works. It stands by itself because every second of it is made to count. September 5, 2008

A Magnificent Slumber...

Well, Orson Welles studio-hatchet original vision of The Magnificent Ambersons ("TMA1") is closer in scope and breadth to the tone of Booth Tarkington's early 20th century novel. A look at a turn of the century, wealthy Indianapolis family, with all of the changes enveloping the country, doesn't need much "sprucing." Somehow director Alfonso Arau manages to over AND under direct what should've been a sweeping spectacle.

A&E are masters at providing classic entertainment adapted from long-forgotten book masterpieces (i.e. Horatio Hornblower series), but this lagging, dragging, mess of a miniseries feels like it should NOT have been tackled because of the numerous half-stepped jobs most of the cast gave. There are some very fine actors in this (James Cromwell, Bruce Greenwood, William Hootkins, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Madeleine Stowe), but only Hootkins (as Uncle George Amberson) seems to really grasp the idea of Tarkington's idea of privileged, American gentility being pushed aside for self-made men and women.

I've seen the majority of Jonathan Rhys Meyers's work (and am a great admirer of him in most of it), but I have to say his take on George Amberson Minafer is grating. Yes, Georgie is a snob, a self-proclaimed "right sort of fellow," but there is a disconnect with the viewer. I know I'm supposed to dislike Georgie but somehow JRM's portrayal falls short (and it's not just because of the accent-although he's Irish, JRM can do a fine American, British, even a Welsh accent!). His finest moment may have come with the stare down with Greenwood's Eugene Morgan. Those blue eyes really do bore holes into your soul.

Jennifer Tilly's Aunt Fanny Minafer is not even worth a mention except to say that she and Stowe's Isabelle Amberson Minafer don't seem to age even though there's a 22 year range in the series. James Cromwell provides a welcome relief to all of the hysterics when he's on screen (but that only happens for about 15 min. in the entire, bloated film!), and Gretchen Mol can emote more than just pasting a smile on her face (see her in THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAIGE for proof).

Director Arau plays up this Oedipal-like idea between Georgie and Isabelle, but that is NOT evidenced in the novel. His ideas are just wrong and "fluff-filler" for most of the film (the opening sequence of the Tango as an example; the Tango wasn't introduced to the US until 1912, and it didn't come from Europe, but from Argentina-hence the name: Argentine Tango...small things like this added nothing to TMA2).

For such a fine cast, compelling material, and a relatively large budget, TMA2 fails to make its mark. 2 stars (the costumes were lovely and authentic looking).
August 6, 2008

Ill-advised TV movie remake is a swing and a miss

Booth Tarkington's 1918 novel, "The Magnificent Ambersons" is far from being magnificent. Here is a taste of it:

"But Lucy who sat beside him lifted ineffable eyes from him [George] to her father, and shook her head.

"`No, just take his hand--gently!'

"She was radiant.

"But for Eugene another radiance filled the room. He knew that he had been true at last to his true love, and that through him she had brought her boy under shelter again. Her eyes would look wistful no more."

What can one say about such leaden phrases as, "ineffable eyes" and "true at last to his true love"? That is weepy, inept pap. The rest of the book is hardly better.

On the assumption that this production does faithfully follow Orson Welles' 1942 shooting script, it is clear that he tightened up the book and made improvements throughout. However, Tarkington's original sow's ear became no more than a much improved sow's ear. The screenplay was no silk purse.

Welles' movie of "The Magnificent Ambersons," mangled and mutilated though it is, retains about itself a tattered air of magnificense and--yes!--art that places it far above the book and even the screenplay. It has an ensemble feeling that dates back to the old Mercury Theater days. The uniformly excellent actors, all united in style and goal, were "One equal temper of heroic hearts," as Tennyson might have said. The film's overall design and cinematography achieved something far beyond anything that Tarkington might have imagined. And more important than any of that, although much more subtle, is the unique, pervasive and unmistakable presence of Orson Welles--that truly ineffable man.

In 1943, the hacked up studio version of the film won academy awards for Agnes Moorehead as best supporting actress, for best black-and-white art direction and interior decoration, for best black-and-white cinematography (Stanley Cortez) and for best picture.

Now we come to this TV movie. It offers only the original screenplay, none of the rest--and in bland TV color, yet! The net effect is similar to that of attempting to reproduce the Mona Lisa on an Etch-A-Sketch. What were they thinking?

This new TV movie arose out of a mediocre conception and was executed by mediocre talents to achieve a mediocre goal. I give it two stars because it at least has two virtues: no semi-clad performers are required to eat bugs on a remote jungle island and Simon Cowell is nowhere in sight. August 5, 2007

A couple of minor additions

The review at the top, Not Quite Magnificent, captures my attitude perfectly. While some things work, and the backstory of the declining family is more interesting than the self-absorbed creeps who are front and center, this thing flops around gasping for air for a painfully long time. Why, I kept asking myself.

I have seen many of these actors in other films, and they are all competent or good. But here, every note, every speech, every aside feels forced and contrived. They even walk woodenly. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a new one for me, is just awful, a tedious and exasperating automaton who is without a trace of humanity. OK, maybe that's the character, but why does he talk like that? And I learn he is Irish. So why, in a huge sprawling film like this, do they use an Irish actor to create a Midwestern voice? It is all wrong, never once sounding like a person. Emblematic of much more.

Masterpiece Theater uses skilled actors who capture the nuances of their characters and make them spring alive. This was the most stagnant production I've ever endured. The actors are usually standing stiffly or glaring. Even the dancing was stolid. Four turgid hours of clumsiness. So if everyone is awful, the pacing is comatose, and the whole thing is chilly and cold, it must be the director. Never have I been so aware of good intentions gone awry. One wonders what Welles would have produced wtih a similar budget and length, but certianly not this mess. July 27, 2007

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