I'm Just A Squirrel Looking For A Nut...

The Singing Detective (2003)



It's difficult watching a remake with it's precursor still so fresh in the mind. It's nigh impossible to watch it with complete objectivity. As this theatrical version of Dennis Potter's television mini-series unfolded my preconceived notion was that it would be crap, a typically sterile Hollywoof xerox, a pale imitation of the original.

As the film evolved, I came to a few startling realisations:

1. Dennis Potter had written this. I had assumed that some Hollywoud hack had mutilapted Potter's original. However, noting that the structure was the same, the idiosynchratic humour relatively intact and scene for scene straight from the original, I realised this must be Potter. It was like a greatest hits package of the original mini series. Most sequences were almost directly lifted from the original, capably ported to the US, remixed with major music hits of the fifites mind you, but ported all the same. Even my favorite scene from the original the word association game between the protagonist and the therapist is here, but it must be said it doesn't hold the same power for me as the original (Potter even throws in some contempary references here, such as Baghdad).

2. The film was quite capably directed by Keith Gordon. Again, ass-u-ming a bit of a hack job (and having only ever previously seen Gordon acted films and not a directed film) I was surprised how well he understood the material, and shot each seperate story in a manner appropriately of the telling. Utilising the requisite, but appropriate, use of digital color timing he imbues the hospital, noir story and backstory with the obligatory contrasting color styles. Watching the early noir scenes I was shocked how much the lighting reminded me of those early dark-filled Bill Pullman scenes in Lost Highway. And one of my favorite sequences (actually improved upon from the original) has Gordon essentially replicating the person in the wardrobe scene from Blue Velvet (which incidentally, the director of the original production, Jon Amiel, calls The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe scene in the original as we never see inside it). No wonder the production designer is looong time Lynch collaborator, Patricia Norris.

3. This film had been expertly and perfectly cast. Although for mine, Michael Gambon will always be The Singing Detective, overall, this cast was actually stronger than the original. There are no adjectives left to describe Downey Jnr. Although he occassionally seems to be impersonating Gambon (not that there's anything wrong with that) his is a polished performance, and captures many of the same empathetic qualities of Gambon's performance. And he does the triple punch of the suffering patient, stylish nightclub singer and gumshoe with equal aplomb. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent: from the slinky innocence of Robin Wright Penn to the keystone cops that are Adrien Brody and Jon Polito to Carla Gugino's alluring mother to the brief cameos of Saul Rubinek and Alfre Woodard. The less said about Katie Holmes the better - if you ignore someone they loose their power. Special mention must be made that Sandahl Bergman dances in this film (and that is her trade, but was also Valeria in the first Conan) and I also mention this because in watched the trfic Big Man On Mulberry Street episode of Moonlighting last week in which she also dances and was also chroeographed by Bill Landrum. Extra special mention must also go to Mel Gibson, whose Icon Productions had the balls to bankroll this doomed from the beginning production, and is startlingly good as the therapist. Many critics have incorrectly called his performance invisible, which is rubbish, it's extremely visible, it's just that it's sooo different to what we are accustomed to Gibson doing.

So all in all a solid box of popcorn, but does not have that extra special layer of butter that the original mini-series had. Seriously, though, why oh why was this film ever made? How can you improve upon perfection? When will Hollywood learn that it's cheaper to pay for the saturation promotion of a twenty year old mini-series released on DVD than to bankroll a major movie production of something so original and idiosynchratic that it will never make it's money back at the box office?