• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 547 0

plays a hit man who, by the very nature of his profession, is a loner. One night, shortly before Christmas, he fires on a man in Macdonald’s office complex from across the street. As she leaves the building a short time later, she looks up and catches a glimpse of him on the roof, where he’s perched on the ledge, apparently preparing to jump. Her scream catches him off guard and sends him reeling backward.

How these two troubled and intensely private people meet and develop a relationship is the crux of the movie. In a film like this, maintaining the right tone is crucial, and Keaton never makes a false move. Lazzeretti’s script has scary scenes and lighter moments as well; they blend together into a seamless whole because we buy into the central characters. Keaton’s low-key portrayal of the hit man who hides more than he ever reveals is excellent, and Macdonald (who’s an asset to any movie she’s in) is superb. Bobby Cannavale is genuinely frightening as Macdonald’s husband, and Tom Bastounes brings just the right note of rumpled affability to the role of a Chicago cop who’s attracted to Macdonald but clumsy about taking the next step.

The Merry Gentleman, ironically titled after the Christmas holiday that’s a backdrop for the story, is an austere but stylish little film noir, and a feather in Michael Keaton’s cap—as both actor and director.

86. METROLAND

(1998)

Directed by Philip Saville

Screenplay by Adrian Hodges

Based on the novel by Julian Barnes

Actors:

CHRISTIAN BALE

EMILY WATSON

LEE ROSS

ELSA ZYLBERSTEIN

RUFUS

JONATHAN ARIS

IFAN MEREDITH

AMANDA RYAN

JOHN WOOD

LUCY SPEED

One of the bonuses in looking back over neglected films of the past ten to fifteen years is discovering good performances by actors whose stock has risen during that time. Christian Bale has been acting since he was a boy; as an adult he’s shown a penchant for challenging and difficult material, but he’s also found a niche in the mainstream thanks to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Terminator Salvation. Bale was in his mid-twenties when he made Metroland, and his serious mien made him a perfect choice to play an ordinary middle-class Brit. (This was before he made a sharp left turn in such films as Velvet Goldmine, American Psycho, and The Machinist.)

Metroland is a deceptively simple story about a young, happily married man whose oldest friend, a hard-living, nomadic, self-styled poet (Lee Ross), comes to visit after five years and rags his pal about having sold out to suburban life and an office job. Chris (Bale) already finds himself thinking a lot about the past, and his youthful sojourn in Paris, where he hoped to live his life as a photographer. That’s where he met his first love, a sexy, straightforwardly honest young woman (Elsa Zylberstein). The continuing presence of his old friend—and the seeming stagnation of his sex life with his wife (Emily Watson)—puts him in a funk, and has him wondering if he didn’t give up on too much, too soon.

The film is based on the debut novel by the well-regarded British author and critic Julian Barnes. Some reviewers found the film too facile, and it’s notable that a female critic, the New York Times’s Janet Maslin, regarded both of the women in the story to be stereotypes. I respectfully disagree. If the Frenchwoman weren’t so magnetic—and so radically different from his British wife—the movie wouldn’t work. And one couldn’t find an actress more innately intelligent than Emily Watson, who makes Chris’s spouse a believable, three-dimensional character.

And of course there is a rose-colored hue to Chris’s memories of the bohemian life he gave up in Paris: that’s the point.

With actors as skillful as Christian Bale, Emily Watson, and Elsa Zylberstein bringing these people to life, Metroland digs beneath the surface and examines the truth of hopes, dreams, and reality. It’s a straightforward but eminently satisfying film.

87. A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

(1992)

Directed by Keith Gordon

Screenplay by Keith Gordon

Based on the novel by William Wharton

Actors:

PETER BERG

KEVIN DILLON