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The 'Truth'? It's a sad remake of a classic film
Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton in 'The Truth About Charlie'
Universal Pictures
The rarest of exceptions was Martin Scorsese's meticulous 1991 fine-tuning of "Cape Fear," ratcheted up in psychological depth from J. Lee Thompson's taut 1962 version.
It wouldn't be humanly possible to match, much less surpass, the charm and sophistication of Stanley Donen's 1963 comedy-thriller "Charade," as scripted by Peter Stone, partly because no one today has the consummate elegance and mischievous sexuality of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
But even if "Charade" didn't exist, the remake called "The Truth About Charlie" would detonate.
It is an exasperating, amateurishly photographed mystery that is so ineptly packaged and indifferently directed that it begs and re-begs the question: What were they thinking? How could they go so far astray and make so many bad choices?
At his best, director Jonathan Demme can be brilliant, as when he led us through the chilling, labyrinthian "Silence of the Lambs" and the compelling "Philadelphia."
Apparently, in an attempt to divorce "The Truth About Charlie" as much as possible from the deliciously high-tone original, he has pushed the content as far into another direction, reconceiving it as an early French New Wave crime drama, like Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless."
Lacking urgency or imagination here, "Charlie" suffers from quivering cinematography and zero chemistry among the players.
It was filmed over four-and-a-half months, but looks like a three-week job made on the fly.
It has no menace, much less suspense, no romance and no wit. A few people at a preview showing laughed once when the heroine slipped.
She's Regina Lambert (Thandie Newton), who has been married for three months to an art dealer she barely knows. When husband Charlie (Stephen Dillane, briefly) is slain on a train, Regina is set upon in Paris by several people of dubious identities who want the $6 million Charlie was to share with some of them.
They include Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg), Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins), Lola (Lisa Gay Hamilton), Emil (Ted Levine) and Il-Sang Lee (Joong-Hoon Park). The remake turns one of the original's male thugs into Lola the lesbian and introduces a female detective, Dominique (Christine Boisson).
The covert World War II action that precipitated the plot of the original is necessarily updated to something that happened three years ago.
"Charlie" removes a few good-natured contrivances only to replace them with others that are more synthetic for being staged so humorlessly.
It's anyone's guess why anyone would attempt to redo "Charade" without a trace of the stylishness that made it one of the all-time great confections.
When Newton says to Wahlberg, very much as Hepburn had said to Grant, "Do you know what's wrong with you? … Nothing!," we have no idea what she means because nothing has ignited between them. She's just a confused widow, and he's a confusing Boy Scout.
The screenplay, which becomes an awful muddle by the end, is credited to Demme, Steve Schmidt, Peter Joshua (a Peter Stone alias) and Jessica Bendinger.
Rachel Portman's score is less than useless; it's distractingly ill-fitting. The injection of singing appearances by Charles Aznavour (mainly) and Anna Karina will confound those who don't get Demme's homage to the New Wave.
A new scene that substitutes for Grant's nightclub grapefruit antics demonstrates more than any other how foolish it is to tamper when the effect is only to trample.
| 'The Truth About Charlie' |
Director: Jonathan Demme
Stars: Thandie Newton, Mark Wahlberg, Tim Robbins
MPAA Rating: PG-13, for some violence and sexual content/nudity
