Rant of the Week

Reign Over Me

There really is not a single honest moment in this movie, or a single emotion that isn't the product of manipulation and contrivance.. 

Did anybody sitting in the theatre for the first five or ten minutes believe, even for a split second, that Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is going to cheat on his wife?  There is no way it's going to happen in this movie, because this movie is not about what a real person in Alan Johnson's predicament would have done--it is about what the audience thinks it would have done if it had been Alan Johnson. 

In the same way, Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) is not based on what a crazy man looks like or how he acts.  It's based on what the audience thinks Adam Sandler would act like if he was playing the role of a crazy man.   We have Robin Williams syndrome ("The Fisher King"):  make your disturbed characters lovably whacky so we can fool ourselves into thinking that we would be understanding and patient and kind if we knew someone like that.  For God's sake, open the door, it's Adam Sandler-- not some genuinely disturbed man who might actually do something disturbing!

Okay.  So not everyone is annoyed with the idea that Alan Johnson hangs out with Charlie for hours and hours and, apparently, cannot imagine that it might be wise to phone his wife and let her know where he is.  But then you couldn't have the phony scene of the conflict with this wife. 

Or that Dr. Oakhurst is an amazing psychiatrist who not only looks like a 19-year-old Playboy bunny, but must be the only psychiatrist in New York who doesn't require patients to make an appointment, and who accepts referrals from dentists.  Not only that, she is willing to drop everything on a moment's notice so she can hang around with her patients during her off hours, and accompany them to court, but this remarkable PHD doesn't seem capable of describing to a judge her qualifications.

Nor do I think the writers had the slightest clue about how the actual process of committing a patient to a psychiatric ward works.

The secondary characters in this movie are almost all mild stereo-types or one-dimensional cut-outs whose sole purpose is to validate your own saintly feelings about how understanding you are about Charlie's mental illness.  Alan Johnson's wife-- come on!-- is the physically perfect wife of the actor, Will Smith: Jada Pinkett.  Seriously.  And Johnson's crisis is that-- get this-- she doesn't understand him.   He feels constricted in his marriage.  What's so unbelievable about that?

Liv Tyler as a psychiatrist.  This is one of the most astute casting choices since they made Meg Ryan a brain surgeon in "City of Angels".  You just look at Liv Tyler and think-- yeah, she reminds me a lot of some psychiatrists I know.

Then you have the tiresome problem of creating dramatic tension by having Charlie resist being treated by the aforementioned saintly psychiatrist when, in real life, nobody seriously believes anyone could or should be treated if they don't want to.  In real life, Dr. Oakhurst says, " You don't want to talk to me?  Fine.  Good bye.  Call me back when you do."  The movie makes a clumsy, awkward concession to reality by having Charlie say, "are we done yet" and Oakhurst reply, "if you want the session to be over, it is", but after showing this three times, you realize that the movie is cheating.  Either there is productive time in each session before Charlie wants to go, or the sessions are ridiculous.  If there is productive time, then the dramatic tension is gone.

These scenes really consist of Charlie running away in the school yard yelling and giggling, "don't chase me, don't chase me".

The only teasingly bright moment in the film is when Alan Johnson realizes that the reason Charlie likes hanging around with him is because he is the only one who doesn't remind Charlie about his loss.  Then Johnson immediately sets out to make Charlie acknowledge his loss, thus draining the potential for dramatic interest in that thread.

Bottom line: yes, this film is exploitive.  By choosing to contrive a story rather than explore the reality of grief and loss, it attempts to cash in without paying it's dues.

All contents copyright © 2007 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.