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Two Girls and a Guy
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There is a
hilarious scene at the heart of James Toback's Two Girls and a Guy which sums up the
writer-director's unique views on personality and behaviour.
Blake
(Robert Downey Jr.) finds himself finally alone in his apartment, after being
mercilessly interrogated by the two women in his life, Carla (Heather Graham)
and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner). They have recently discovered that Blake is
intimately involved with both of them at once – and lying furiously about it.
So Blake
stares at himself long and hard in a mirror, splashing his face with water,
swearing to "get it together" and tell the truth in future. Within
moments, however, Blake is entranced by his own image – and, not the first time
in the movie, he begins pulling grotesque faces while singing a bent rendition
of Jackie Wilson's "You Don't Know Me".
Personal
identity is a bottomless pit in Toback's films (Fingers [1978], The Pick-Up
Artist [1987]). The more that his characters try to strip
themselves or each other naked – to find an essence or truth – the more they
find only masks, ruses, postures. Although this gifted and underrated
artist of the American cinema has often portrayed such a state of affairs
tragically, here he turns it into comedy – and the result is scintillating.
For his
first directorial assignment in eight years, Toback puts together a modest,
contained concept that milks the most out of very few ingredients. The action
takes place almost entirely within Blake's apartment, with long stretches of
three-hander talk occurring in real time.
But Two Girls and a Guy is a far cry from
the static banality of, say, Rolf de Heer's similarly circumscribed The Quiet Room (1996). The rapid juxtaposition of moods, the steady exploration of all the
nooks and crannies of the apartment, the precise alternation of heated and
reflective moments – all this turns the film into a captivating exercise.
Above all,
it is the actors who sustain the energy and liveliness of the piece. From their
first appearance beside each other in the street, Graham and Wagner are a
delightful study in contrasts – cool versus girlish, intellectual versus
streetwise, lucid versus scatty. When Blake – the supreme narcissist, always in
the midst of some performance – is added into the mix, the sparks really fly.
Downey, whose naturally
wild and crazy style is often excessive and misjudged on screen, here finds his
perfect vehicle.
This is the
funniest film I have seen in ages. Toback resists easy puns and punchlines, but
the rapid-fire, neo-screwball interaction between his three, youthful
characters builds to indelible highpoints of mutual exasperation,
misunderstanding and game-playing. The shock ending is as daring as anything
Toback has ever put on screen.
One perhaps
needs to be a hard-core Toback devotee to really get the most out of Two Girls and a Guy. So much of the film
gives a new, lighter spin to elements familiar from his past work – such as the
obsessive-compulsive nature of male sexuality, the incongruous presence of high
culture within the lives of desperate opportunists, the figure of the
actor-as-criminal, and the all-important place given to parental ties.
Toback has
usually been – unfortunately for him – way ahead of the times. In Two Girls and a Guy, however, his
lively, often perverse world-view meets popular cinema's renewed interest in
the mixed-up lifestyles of contemporary youth. There could be no better guide
through the dangerous liaisons of the modern world.
MORE Toback: Black and White © Adrian Martin April 1999 |
