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The truth hurts
Despite his credits and his ambition for this film, director Jonathan Demme falls short with The Truth About Charlie.
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 24, 2002
[AP photo]
Mark Wahlberg, left, and Thandie Newton work hard but can’t generate enough sparks for a convincing romance.
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Here's the poorly kept secret regarding The Truth About Charlie: The mystery surrounding the titular character's sudden disappearance is intriguing for the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, a reinvention of 1963's Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn thriller Charade.
After that, the latest from director Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia, The Silence of the Lambs) degenerates into stylishly photographed but essentially hollow busywork. Identities shift, allegiances switch, and Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton work hard to create the illusion that a) sparks of romance fly between their characters and b) the two actors have what it takes to carry a movie.
But Wahlberg (Planet of the Apes, Boogie Nights) and Newton (Mission: Impossible II, Demme's Beloved) aren't successful on either count. The Truth About Charlie is a disappointment, a routine, mostly forgettable exercise from the filmmaker also responsible for the effervescent Married to the Mob and the edgy Something Wild.
Newton is Regina, a vivacious British beauty returning to Paris after a quick Caribbean vacation. Charlie, her frequently absent, womanizing husband of three months, has evaporated, leaving an empty, trashed apartment.
Charlie also has bequeathed a long list of surprises about his true identity, beginning with passports issued by four countries and a secret fortune valued in the multimillions. Complicating matters is the arrival of a trio of Charlie's tough former associates, teamed in relentless pursuit of that elusive fortune.
Two knights in shining armor -- a four-square government agent (Tim Robbins) from the Office of Defense Cooperation and Joshua Peters (Wahlberg), an unusually helpful American guy -- show up to rescue Regina. A few hours after identifying her late spouse's body, in fact, the widow is flirtatiously asking the new love interest on the block about his romantic experience. "Have you ever been in love in Paris?" Regina asks Joshua. But whom should she trust? And for how long?
Demme, following his usually reliable instincts, reportedly aimed for a high concept with Charlie: He combined the Charade story, updated by the director and three co-screenwriters (including Peter Joshua, who scripted the original), with the "shoot-from-the-hip" approach of the New Wave filmmakers working in Paris at the time Charade was shot in by-the-book fashion by Stanley Donen.
Thus, there is the occasional use of hand-held cameras and quirky cuts, and appearances by Anna Karina, one-time wife of Jean-Luc Godard and an actor in his movies; French pop singer/actor Charles Aznavour, playing himself in a couple of dreamlike interludes and in a clip from Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player; Magali Noel, and Agnes Varda.
During a fanciful interlude, one of the movie's funniest and most effective sequences, nearly all the major characters converge on a nightclub, where a cabaret singer continually commands the dancers to change partners.
Charlie, whatever its shortcomings, will always have Paris: Shots of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the city's Metro underground rail system and the bridges over the Seine abound. If nothing else, the movie offers a cheap, fast excursion to the City of Lights.
The Truth About Charlie
- Grade: B-
- Director: Jonathan Demme
- Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins, Christine Boisson, Jim Brooks
- Screenplay: Jonathan Demme, Steve Schmidt, based on the movie Charade
- Rating: PG-13; nudity, violence
- Running time: 104 min.
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