|
Indie Flick
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 29, 2001
Emotions worth a listen
[Photo: Lions Gate]
Uma Thurman as Amy in Richard Linklater's Tape.
|
Tape (R) (86 min.) -- Richard Linklater has two films in release now, two extremes of cinema's potential, each soaring and fading in its own distinctive way. Waking Life is a breakthrough in animation and boring in its free-form intellectualism. Tape is live action, visually stunted by its one-room setting yet verbally alive and ferociously acted.
One is fun to watch, the other intriguing to hear. Finding a project that combines both virtues would be something to see from this obviously gifted filmmaker. Shooting Tape using the animation process created for Waking Life would have been a great idea.
Tape is based on Stephen Belber's poisonous stage play: three characters, one set and countless dark impulses. Linklater used digital video to "open up" the motel room locale, using smaller cameras that can be stationed anywhere for an interesting angle. The lack of background music (until a winking kicker) adds to the reality factor. Tape doesn't feel claustrophobic, but emotionally caged like its trio of former high school friends.
Vince (Ethan Hawke) appears to be the most disturbed, a petty dope dealer with passive-aggressive tendencies. He's staying at the motel and invites John (Robert Sean Leonard) for a reunion. Everything's smiley, but a current of tension runs beneath the small talk and confessions. The conversation turns to Amy, a girl they both liked, and Vince pries into details of John's only date with her. Or was it date rape?
The cat-and-rat games turn nasty when Vince reveals he's recording John's lame evasiveness. Then Amy (Uma Thurman, above) shows up, the final element of a combustible situation. It's sex, lies and videotape, the same themes that started Steven Soderbergh on a path to respectability Linklater sometimes seems interested in following.
Tape is all about the words and performances and succeeds mightily on that level. Hawke and Leonard are usually among the blandest young lions working today, but they rise to this occasion. Thurman thaws out her typical screen demeanor, displaying pain and anger she seldom gets a chance to play. Linklater's movie affirms why anyone paid attention to these actors in the first place. A-
|
View a clip
|
 |
Back to Weekend
© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
|
