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Review: Jeepers, 'Washington Square' plot is redundant
October 30, 1997
Web posted at: 5:23 p.m. EST (2223 GMT)From Reviewer Paul Tatara
(CNN) -- I alluded to this in a recent review, but I honestly feel that, pound for pound, Jennifer Jason Leigh is the single most irritating actress in the movies. That doesn't mean that I think she's untalented. She's obviously got some talent, and probably quite a bit more than several less quirky actresses who immediately get offered the better parts. However, she just doesn't display enough of it to deserve the free rein she receives from directors who (as far as I can figure) are overcome by how damn hard she tries.
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In stuff like "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" she pushes herself so relentlessly her actorly veins are practically showing. You'd think she's lifting emotional refrigerators instead of delivering dialogue with a badly realized accent. Check out her performance in "Georgia" some time, if you feel the need to do some penance. I've seen home movies set pool-side at a Holiday Inn that contain less mugging for the camera.
There. It's nice to get that out of my system; healthy venting is probably why I write these things anyway. It's just as nice, however, to be able to say that I really enjoyed Leigh's intentionally awkward and grasping performance in "Washington Square," an adaptation of the Henry James novel.
Directed by erratic Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, the movie itself is repetitious beyond repair, but Leigh, Albert Finney, and Maggie Smith all do the Merchant Ivory sock-hop thing with, if not a fully-displayed sense of humor, then certainly with a welcome tendency to smirk when a character starts acting too pompous for his baggy britches. Or her multiple-petticoat party dress, as the case may be.
Leigh plays Catherine Sloper, a socially inept wallflower who isn't much to look at but just loves her widowed daddy. The story kicks into gear when that wealthy father, Dr. Austin Sloper (Finney), grows none-too-pleased with Catherine's first (and only) selection for romantic love. That would be Morris Townsend (Ben Chaplin, dark and dreamy), a money-challenged type who just can't get enough of Cathy's obvious lack of charm. He also likes her piano.
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QuickTime movieCatherine's romantic Aunt Lavinia (Smith) is just as taken with Morris as Catherine is, so she does everything she can to bring these two lovebirds together. But, just like it always does in these situations, things come to a boil when Pop refuses to let the kids get married and start spending his money. You see, he can't imagine that Morris is after anything but Catherine's inheritance, and, considering her taste in clothes and lack of lip-liner, he may very well be right.
Just like millions of people will sit through a movie as long as it's a lot like "Die Hard" ("Die Hard" on a boat, "Die Hard" with a goat, etc. It's like something out of Dr. Seuss), just as many will watch anything set at the turn of the century that smacks of "Howard's End."
There's really next-to-nothing of any interest going on in "Washington Square," except that Leigh and Chaplin want to tie the knot, and Finney wants to tie Chaplin's neck in a knot. "Harrumph-harrumph. Father-father-father." Then it rains, and Leigh throws herself down in the mud.
You can't blame Henry James. Not because it's impossible, but because you're just not allowed to. College literature, you know. So I guess the charge has to be leveled at screenwriter Carol Doyle. I had no problem with the content, and some of the scenes between Finney and Leigh are quite powerful, but, jeepers. How many times do we have to be told that Leigh just loves the guy and Finney just hates him?
After a while the movie starts to feel like a production design tape loop. It looks swell (including a startling opening shot that creeps in a window and all around the interior of a beautiful brownstone), but lots of things look swell. At least when you view a painting, it's over at the point that you avert your eyes. The painting doesn't keep re-asserting itself.
If this is your cup of tea (held with pinky pointed upward), check it out. Then again, if, like me, you think costumes are basically just strips of cloth that people slide over their bodies to protect them against the elements, you probably shouldn't bother.
"Washington Square" is about as straitlaced as Grandma's corset. There's a bloody, tragic childbirth scene at the beginning, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Rated PG. 115 minutes.
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