Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
8/5/07
It's
not all that uncommon to see a movie at war with itself: is it a
drama or a comedy, a crowd-pleaser or an artistic statement? Sometimes
it's because of a filmmaker with a conflicted vision, but more often the
committee nature of the movie business is to blame. So many constituencies
to please: stars, directors, producers, studio executives, financiers,
and test audiences, just to name a few. But it's rare to see a movie
as unable to choose between two diametrically opposed visions of itself
as the Catherine Zeta Jones vehicle No Reservations. In its'
heart, it's a grim drama about an emotionally stunted chef forced to care
for the young daughter of her late sister. Except that every 10 minutes
or so, somebody jabs it in the ribs with a cattle prod and shouts “You're
a comedy!!!!” at which time a wacky musical montage breaks out or Aaron
Eckhart starts singing. The resulting mess is too sad to work as
a comedy, not serious enough to work as a drama, and too unfocused to work
at all.
Kate
(Catherine Zeta Jones) is “one of New York's top chefs”. She's a
perfectionist, and I don't mean that in a good way. In fact, her
obsession with getting things just right and the anger management issues
that spring to the fore whenever anyone disagrees with the quality of her
food have led her cold fish boss (Patricia Clarkson) to order her to see
a therapist (Bob Balaban, billed as “Therapist”). Then things get
really bad. Her sister is killed in a car accident, leaving her with
custody of her young daughter Zoe (Abagail Breslin, officially taking the
“little girl in every movie” baton from deposed Kiddie Queen Dakota Fanning).
And then, she winds up with a new assistant chef in her kitchen:
Nick (Aaron Eckhart), who's cultivated a fun, musical atmosphere in Kate's
absence.
Romance,
of course, is inevitable, but the odd thing about No Reservations
is that after this competent, promising setup, the film begins firing cliched
scenes at us seemingly at random. In one, a school administrator
threatens to call Child Protective Services. Then, this subplot is
scrapped. In one scene, Kate and Nick are very happy as a budding
couple, in the next they're at each other's throats. Musical montages
to staggeringly unoriginal song choices (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”?
Nooooooooo!) break out to try and pump up the movie's spirits. And
people spend a suspicious amount of time talking with their backs to us
or while they're off-camera. And all the while the fact that Zeta
Jones plays her role as though she is 100% not in a comedy and Eckhart
plays his as though he absolutely is keeps all but the minimum chemistry
generated by putting their attractive faces in the same shot together from
breaking out.
I don't
know anything about the movie's behind the scenes history, but I have grave
suspicions that either a lot of reshooting was done to amp up the romantic
comedy elements or the film was extensively reworked in the editing room
with the same goal. But it doesn't really matter because the footage
we get doesn't succeed at any of the things it sets out to do. It
all starts in therapy, because Kate is clearly a very troubled woman (and
not in a wacky, romantic comedy way) and The Therapist has absolutely no
luck even getting her to talk about what seem to be some pretty heavy abandonment
issues. Instead, he offers lame screenplaybabble about how there
can't be a cookbook for life because “the best recipes are the ones you
make up yourself”. After that line, we cut to Zeta Jones just staring
at him. I think the movie means us to interpret this as a moment
of breakthrough insight, but I preferred to think of it as Kate thinking
“He is so fired.” In some ways, Balaban will always be defined for
me by his immortally campy/awful role (I don't know if I'll ever be sure
which it is) as the nitpicking film critic Mr. Farber in M. Night Shayamalan's
Lady in the Water, and if he hadn't been mauled by a vicious Scrunt,
Farber would have just hated the nonsense his alter-ego spends this movie
spouting. In the absence of a therapeutic breakthrough, Kate's relationships
with Nick and Zoe are guided more by contrivance and necessity than any
organic characterization. Zoe's about the easiest kid in the world
to take care of (she never even seems to get the sniffles despite spending
a lot of time outside in the cold) and Nick pretty much lives to make Kate
happy: every troubled person in the world wishes to have such agreeable
“obstacles” dropped in their path. The film manages to sidestep a
lot of the cliches of the romantic comedy genre (no Big Lie keeps the chefs
apart, Kate doesn't have to go to court to keep custody of Zoe or race
to the airport to stop Nick from leaving town) but it's more because the
movie doesn't have much in the way of a plot rather than that it's got
an original one.
No
Reservations is good for a chuckle or two and its' filled with agreeable
actors, but nobody here is even breaking a sweat. Zeta Jones is good
at establishing Kate's icy, walled-off exterior but has no luck bringing
out any of what she's hiding from the world. Eckhart is all fun all
the time, and his Big Issue (a fear of trying to Make It On His Own as
a head chef) never feels like a real part of the character. Breslin's
Zoe takes her Mom's death pretty well all things considered, and her mopey/cute
performance doesn't really stand out in any way. Clarkson also seems
confused about what kind of movie she's in: she pretty much nails
the indifference of the average employer, but the casual realism with which
she plays her role only adds to the movie's inability to generate comic
momentum. And the kitchen is filled with one-note types (pregnant
woman, aspiring actress) whose characters never do anything. I'm
not all that versed in fine dining, but I also didn't really buy anyone
as a chef or waitress, and most of the food-related dialog rings false.
A forgettable
misfire notable only for how oddly off-point it is, No Reservations
does nothing to suggest that Shine director Scott Hicks has a future
in comedy. In fact, even now I have only a couple mugging montages
as proof that it is a comedy. No self-respecting drama would
have a “four wacky poses in a photo booth” scene... would it? |
