Review: 'Afterglow' lacks spark

Nolte

December 26, 1997
Web posted at: 2:06 p.m. EST (1906 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- The only thing amusing about the new Alan Rudolph film "Afterglow" is that its news release refers to it as "wryly comic."

I guess the movie is supposed to be a droll take on the battle of the sexes, with an occasional dramatic interlude, but the stagy and sometimes downright lousy dialogue sinks any possibility of getting wrapped up in the tired narrative.

A not-particularly-inspired Nick Nolte plays Lucky, a Montreal-based plumber who enjoys servicing more than kitchen plumbing for his female customers. His wife, Phyllis (Julie Christie), is a beautiful-but-wasted former B-movie actress who hasn't slept with Lucky in years and turns a blind eye to his relentless womanizing.

She spends most of her free time sitting around the house watching her old movies, which look like Roger Corman costume quickies from the early '60s. When they're together, Phyllis and Lucky like to have stilted discussions about death and the inexorable loss of hope that can only arise from learning the same screenplay.

The other couple

Meanwhile, on the fancy side of the tracks, we're introduced to Marianne and Jeffrey (Lara Flynn Boyle and Jonny Lee Miller), a young married couple who live in the ugliest building I've ever seen outside of the bunker where Hitler shot himself.

Jeffrey is an arrogant, straight-arrow businessman who evidently can't be bothered to move facial muscles or develop a taste for sex with his beautiful wife. That's too bad, because Marianne, a flitty little thing, wants nothing more than to have a baby with her husband. Considering his demeanor, though, she'd be wiser to coax him into a vasectomy. Or a personality transplant.

Boyle's cute little wisp of a body and paper-thin voice practically render her invisible when she isn't dolled-up and trying to seduce someone (at which point you're able to forgive her pretty much anything), but she's got the unbridled charisma of Rita Hayworth compared to Miller. Miller was fine, if not exactly memorable, as Sick Boy in last year's "Trainspotting," but this time around he's virtually the poster boy for awfulitis.

I suppose it's the result of a misconceived performance rather than sheer lack of talent, but line readings don't come any lamer than Miller's affectless monotone in "Afterglow."

Besides, Miller's character Jeffrey is so misogynistic and uninspired, it'd be hard to imagine a woman wanting to perform a Heimlich maneuver on him, much less conceive his child. This is a thinly written character, thinly performed. Between Miller and Boyle, half the movie seems to be cast with Kleenex.

Dumb and dumber

It's not too hard to guess that Lucky will end up doing some work on the unhappy couple's home, and Marianne will soon be smooching him in the tub while her less affectionate hubby Jeffrey is at the office.

This is supposed to be a big deal, but considering Lucky's wife's relative comfort with his lax attitude toward fidelity, and Marianne's virtual slug of a husband, it's hard to give a damn about any of it.

It also doesn't help that the conversations between Lucky and Marianne are wince-inducing. Lucky lays on the har-dee-har- har double entendres like he's channeling Mr. Roper, and Marianne is just plain old dumb as a meatloaf. You feel like grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her, even when she's buck naked.

Christie as Phyllis eventually follows her husband Lucky to a hotel bar, where she watches from the corner as he and Marianne kiss and flirt.

As Lucky wouldn't have it, she manages to be seated right next to Marianne's suspicious husband, who's somehow noticed that his wife has written the hotel's name in BIG RED LETTERS on the kitchen calendar. Jeffrey's there to catch her in the act ... which would be a whole lot easier if he were willing to perform the act himself.

Christie still a stellar actress

So now Jeffrey and Phyllis start getting hot and heavy. Yeah, right.

As contrived as the script is, however, Rudolph still can't obscure the fact that Christie is a great, great actress. This woman should be getting better (and a lot more) roles than she's getting, regardless of Hollywood's obsession with the idea that Sharon Stone is the be-all-and-end-all of "mature" female sexuality.

At age 56, Christie is still gorgeous, casually stylish, and can act circles around women half her age.

When I was a kid, we had a grizzled school bus driver who could (quite impressively) crush wayward honey bees with his bare thumb. Christie is such a fully developed, knowing, intelligent woman, I couldn't help thinking that her character could easily do the same thing to Boyle's empty-headed tootsie.

That Lucky has trouble recognizing what he has in his own bedroom is not only silly, it's near-criminal.

I can't say that I'm glad I saw this movie. I am glad, however, to be reminded that there are still actresses like Christie lurking among the swarms of cookie-cutter honey bees out there. Crush 'em, Julie! Crush 'em!

"Afterglow" contains the usual brief nudity, profanity and mature situations. It's definitely not for the kiddies, but Boyle and Miller's performances as Marianne and Jeffrey are probably the most disturbing part of the movie. Rated R. 113 minutes.

Related site:

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• Afterglow - Official Site

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