frankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank Maloney) (12/31/90)
THE RUSSIA HOUSE
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1990 Frank Maloney
THE RUSSIA HOUSE (I may slip and call this the Russian House
somewhere in the course of this notice--I once lived in a
Russian-language-only institute call Russian House and the habit is
ingrained, I fear) stars Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer with Klaus
Maria Brandauer and Roy Scheider inter alia; it is based on a novel by
John LeCarre of the same name.
This is touted as LeCarre's first post-Cold War suspense
novel-cum-movie, and so it may be; but alas Cold War (pre-, post-, or
amid) thriller have never been my preferred reading genre and I have not
had the pleasure of any of LeCarre's efforts. However, I have seen
movies based on his works, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD staying
especially in the memory. And my memory is that as stories they were
pretty well muddled affairs and my impression has been that they did not
translate the novels into film well.
I think it is possible LeCarre and his readers have been better
served in THE RUSSIA HOUSE. The screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard,
a very respectable writer in his own right. Certainly, I was left with
none of the "well, somebody did something to somebody, that much is
clear at any rate" (as Alice said after hearing the "Jabberwocky")
feeling I've felt in the past in the face of this cloak-and-dagger
tomfoolery.
Here, instead, I have a pretty straightforward kind of story, with
a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is not to say it doesn't have
its surprises, twists, turns, and suspense. It's just that here the
theme is crystal clear throughout: loyalty. People's loyalties are
tested, defined, and put the test. The final loyalty, the one the film
endorses ultimately, is typical of our post-CW sensibility, and I for
one am glad to see it.
As to the performances, Connery, Pfeiffer, and company do good
solid, yeomanlike work. I don't think anybody really sails here, but no
one does a pratfall either. In some ways, Connery's performance could
be the most suspect insofar as he turns one of his standard
curmudgeons-with-a-heart-of-gold interpretations; but the man has such
presence, such command of the screen, that it is hard not to just bathe
in it gratefully even though I did not find him nearly as disreputable
in the beginning as he should have been, nor his transformation nearly
so graduated as it could have been.
Pfeiffer in so ways takes more chances with her role as Katya, the
go-between, the Russian woman who loves both Brandauer the great
scientist and Connery the sodden British publisher. For one thing, she
does a pretty creditable Russian accent and speaks a little Russian here
and there in a not embarrassing way as near as this former student of
Russian can detect.
Among the supporting players, Brandauer and Scheider are the most
familiar to me. For those of us who have seen COLONEL REDL, all other
Brandauer performances seem footnotes; but I can't think of film that
hasn't been better for his presence (especially the worse ones, like OUT
OF AFRICA). I was just wondering to myself the other day what Roy
Scheider was doing these days. Here he plays the CIA bigshot and does a
good job of being alternately (or simultaneously) a jerk and a
gentleman. James Fox plays his British counterpart (at Russia House)
and does a fine turn. His real purpose appears to be slimy in just such
a civil way as puts the upstart Yanks in their place.
One of the real draws of THE RUSSIA HOUSE is the wonderful location
photography, especially that in Moscow and Leningrad. This must be the
first Western thriller that was shot in the Soviet Union instead of
using Helsinki as a stand-in (see GORKY PARK, for example).
Fascinating, revealing and gorgeous, used to great effect throughout.
Fred Schepisi, the director, and the production people, especially the
director of photography, Ian Baker, ought to be in line for some
appropriate recognition in this area.
I have no problem in recommending THE RUSSIAN HOUSE to anyone who
doesn't mind quite a lot of rough language. There's no nudity, no open
sex, no graphic violence, but oh the language.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloneyleeper@mtgzy.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) (12/31/90)
THE RUSSIA HOUSE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Colorless spy story keeps promising to
pay off with something happening, but plot twists are a long
time coming. Photography in Russia tries to make it look
exotic and interesting, but the rather drab cities are not
the best photographic subjects. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
At the beginning of THE RUSSIA HOUSE three notebooks purportedly
containing Soviet military secrets have been passed to a British publisher
and the British want to know if the notebooks are genuine. An hour and
forty minutes into THE RUSSIA HOUSE we have seen a lot of Russian scenery,
we know some of the characters involved a little better, a fourth notebook
has been passed, and now the Americans as well as the British want to know
if the notebooks are genuine. That may well be how the spy business really
is, but it really is not a very good piece of story-telling. It would be
one thing if the evidence built up in an interesting way the way it did in a
previous LeCarre adaptation, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY. But here we are
dealing with far less than compelling characters. The two main characters
are Sean Connery as British publisher Barley Blair and Michelle Pfeiffer as
Soviet publisher Katya. Katya passes the notebooks written by a former
lover Klaus Maria Brandauer as the enigmatic Dante. Barley and Blair seem
to fall in love for reasons never very clear. This has to be a what's-the-
attraction love pairing to rival the one in HAVANA.
Fred Schepisi has taken a script that would move moderately well at
thirty minutes and stretched it to a hundred and twenty-three. One way that
he has stretched it is to show you the scenery of Russia, mostly Moscow and
Leningrad. This plays off the new post-glasnost interest in the Soviet
Union; however, it seems unlikely this film will greatly contribute to
Soviet tourism. While many of the buildings are of majestic design, the
film only underscored the drabness of Russia. That drabness is further
emphasized by filming Russia with perpetually overcast skies. The film also
unsells tourism by underscoring how much the economy has degraded under
glasnost. As Katya complains, "Glasnost gives everyone the right to
complain and accuse, but it doesn't make shoes." Curiously, Katya manages
to be able to get plenty of eye make-up, as Michelle Pfeiffer's characters
always do.
What is curious about the uninteresting background is that the
screenplay is by Tom Stoppard, who made Shanghai mystical and fascinating in
his screenplay for EMPIRE OF THE SUN. Here, however, he tries to show us
not a physical landscape but the figurative landscape of the world of
espionage and counter-espionage. LeCarre can make that landscape
interesting, but it does not come through in Stoppard's screenplay. I like
Stoppard and LeCarre, but I hope they realize they are no good for each
other. I rate their result a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com