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Rating:
One of those evenings when you feel like a five-month pregnant girl; only the craving isn't for french fries with whipped cream, but for a film to watch. So you slide your finger over the crumpled lead and mentally say while reading the titles, "no, no, no, hell no, absolutely not." And then, there it is, dawning among the morning dew, a maybe. A timid and fragile maybe that, upon rereading the misery above, becomes a yes of happily ever after. Grab your coat, keys, and off you go. To the cinema. With her, the beautiful brunette who unfortunately was not what I hoped she would be, and who instead turned out to be what I feared she might be. Before and after the film, a muddy and disruptive flood, an endless tsunami of consonants and vowels, a machine gun placed above the bay of V Day, and there I was, defenseless and agonizing, clutching my insides while I say a false "Thank you, it was nice! Until next time.”
Life.
The direction by Richard J. Lewis (a name unknown to me) is mediocre, especially in the editing of the scenes, which, with sharp cuts, removes rhythm and oxygen from the work, chopping it up as if the episodes were joined with spit without much saliva and watered-down vinyl glue from Art Attack. An overall dull photography, while the plot, although blatantly exaggerated and pumped up, proves to be engaging with a swing that goes from a pleasing sarcastic and irreverent comedy to a sentimental one, then making a sudden foray into drama near the end. Notable supporting roles, including Hoffman shining as an amusingly shameless father, and a couple of scenes capable of staying fixed in your mind even days later. But if the film, without wasting high-sounding adjectives, is overall pleasant, it is almost exclusively due to Giamatti's performance.
This large man with chameleon-like eyes set in a body that takes the shape of a plump pear embodies the protagonist of this reckless life. And don’t think it's easy to shape Barney: the one described in the eponymous book is not a polygon, a triangle, or a square, with definite angles and lines connecting the various points.
He is a heap of bones, fat, and senseless ideas: a troublemaker, a sarcastic and acidic volcano living comfortably off the stupidity of others by writing episodes of revolting quality for an insanely ridiculous "Beautiful" series B made in Canada. He doesn't know, and most likely doesn't want to, set a course for his life. He has bastard and libertine friends: budding artists, talented and rule-free intellectuals with whom he spends his best years for a maroon juice that drips between pounds of ice and steep ash slopes. Until, at a certain point, perhaps to chase away a midlife crisis, he gets entangled with a great pair of breasts in a wedding ring decidedly too tight for his lifestyle.
A comfortable existence is not quite for this screenwriter from the "Absolutely Useless Productions" company, and so, on his wedding day, he is struck by a hellacious and unexpected lightning bolt of love. The kind that pushes everything else to the second and third plane, there behind the mountains. Barney is a lucky guy, but not one of those who waits for fate to play its game; not passive at all, if he wants something, he takes it, and it's with determination, stupidity, madness, and sweetness that he scores big, bingo, and jackpot.
The point of this review isn't to fool you into thinking this good 2/3-star film is something it will never be, but to recommend the name of Paul Giamatti. Especially if you didn’t know him or, much worse, thought he gave his best in that half-crap "The Illusionist".
In “Barney's Version,” you can appreciate and witness the talent of a mature actor with serious chops who has all the potential to explode and entertain us in future scripts for years.
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