Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
11/4/11
In
our remake, reboot and recycle-happy movie climate, it’s a minor miracle
to watch a movie that’s not following any kind of pre-established template,
be it the one established by its predecessors or genre. The Debt,
the new thriller from Shakespeare in Love director John Madden,
isn’t that movie per se: after all, it’s a remake of a 2007 Israeli
movie of the same name. But it is the next best thing: a remake
of a movie I haven’t seen that genuinely feels like its twisty, well-structured
story could shoot off in any direction at any moment. Skillfully
acted (accent issues aside) by a first-rate cast paired off into two groups
to play the same characters 30 years apart, The Debt is suspenseful
and unpredictable, assuming, you know, that you’ve never seen the movie
it’s a remake of. Either way, it’s a good pivot point to the Fall
season when adult moviegoers are asked to switch their brains back into
the “ON” position.
It’s
1997. Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren) has spent decades as a hero of
Israel, and now her daughter Sarah (Romi Aboulafia) has written a book
about her famous exploits. In 1966, she and two fellow agents killed
Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen) behind enemy lines
in Communist East Germany. Sarah’s father and Rachel’s ex-husband
Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson) shows up at a celebration of the book with
bad news: the third of their group, David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds) killed
himself before his eyes earlier that day. Just yesterday, he’d turned
up at a speech Rachel gave and asked to speak to her. Rachel reflects
on the events of 30 years prior. She (Jessica Chastain) was a young
translator working in the field for the first time. David (Sam Worthington)
was withdrawn and obsessed with seeing Vogel prosecuted before the world
to pay for the deaths of his entire family during the war. And Stephan
(Marton Csokas) was wildly ambitious, determined to use a successful mission
as a stepping stone. Vogel is working as a gynecologist under an
alias and Rachel becomes one of his patients to allow them to abduct him,
setting up a plan to sneak across the border on the roof of a passing train
at a key moment. But it all falls apart, leaving the three of them
and their prisoner hold up in an apartment as their bonds slowly crack,
the Nazi only too happy to push their buttons. In the present, a
dark secret about how it ended hangs over all their heads, and it will
send Rachel on one last mission.
The
Debt has a cast’s cast, and it pulls considerable tension out of just
how skillfully both trios of actors are able to make you feel like they’re
hiding or working their way up to something unspeakable. When the
revelation comes, it’s skillfully delivered with considerable filmmaking
slight of hand: I had to go back for a moment and ask myself “Did
I just see what I think I saw?” To its credit, the script Matthew
Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan adapted from Assaf Bernstein and
Ido Rosenblum’s film Ha-Hov is headed places I didn’t anticipate,
both before and after the revelation, and both past and present stories
end with fights where the life and death stakes feel very real.
Jessica
Chastain is enjoying a breakout year, and she’s sensational in what feels
like the largest of the film’s ensemble roles, and it’s easy to see how
her vulnerability gave way to Mirren’s emotional shutdown. So too
does Csokas’ vaguely incompetent ambition flow smoothly to Wilkinson’s
cold spymaster and Worthington’s repressed obsessiveness lay the groundwork
for Hinds’ more obvious madness. The film probably spends too much
time worrying about the interpersonal dynamics between the three younger
characters, but they do pay off in impressive ways when we see the choices
they made that connect the two eras. I’m not sure why all movie Nazis
are masters of psychological warfare, but Christensen is memorably ghoulish
as the latest in that cinematic tradition. While the film is full
of casual brutality and surprisingly realistic physical struggle, it never
gets scarier than the unthinkable notion of Rachel subjecting herself to
a gynecological examination from a man she knows is a Nazi war criminal.
I also admired the work of Aboulafia, who through her vibrant admiration
of her mother makes it so easy to see why Rachel has kept a secret that’s
been crushing her soul for decades.
The
Debt is at its best when it’s at its most punishing: Madden takes
great pains to make us feel all its assorted cruelty, both physical and
emotional. It all goes on a tad long, but it’s one of those movies
that has some really high highs that will stick with you after the lows
have faded from memory. And, if you haven’t seen the Israeli version,
it packs the rare joy of being genuinely surprised by the twists and turns
of a story that, frankly, could be headed just about anywhere. The
Summer movies season must be over. |
