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Sommersby
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Some
films have a narrative premise that is so powerful, and so full of
possibilities, that it is almost impossible to muck it up, no matter how weak
the movie may be in some areas.
The
producers of Sommersby obviously knew
they had found a premise of this calibre when they saw the French film The Return of Martin Guerre (1982). Add two
charismatic stars (Richard Gere and Jodie Foster), an
able director (Jon Amiel) and an elegiac score by Danny Elfman, and not too
much can go wrong.
Nonetheless,
bringing out the resonances of this story required some real art and craft from
Amiel and his collaborators. They made an inspired choice: in this tale of a
man (Gere) who returns to his community and family after a long absence in
wartime, the point-of-view remains firmly with his wife (Foster). She is caught
in a delicious, nerve-wracking dilemma: she suspects he is not the same man she
married, but she likes this new guy a lot better than the old one.
Some
passages of the film – particularly those devoted to the drama of the rural
community and the rise of the Klu Klux Klan – are not as absorbing. Here, the
focus of the story shifts uneasily to the husband and the question of his
social identity, giving Gere his requisite grandstanding scenes.
However,
as soon as Amiel gets his stars back into the bedroom, all the fantasies and
tensions of the central love story explode and flower once more.
MORE Foster: Anna and the King, Flightplan, Little Man Tate, Nell, Panic Room © Adrian Martin November 1993 |
