Friday, July 29, 2005
Heights (2004)
Director: Chris Terrio
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film - including the ending.
It is interesting to see what sticks in your mind a few days after viewing a film: a particular image, a bit of dialogue, some lingering emotional impact. In Heights it is the many close-ups of Glen Close's face. Close give a better performance and is more strikingly beautiful than I have seen her in any other of her films. (Admittedly that list is small.) Close dominates the film, a great accomplishment given her character, Diana, is tangential to the central plot; yet, her performance is the fulcrum that balances the various story lines slowly converging throughout Heights.
Also noteworthy is this film's existence in summertime. Heights is a small, well-acted, mature drama - adjectives rarely applied in this season of explosions, superheroes and general adolescence in film. It is this summer's Tadpole or The Housekeeper, a small breath of fine film making in a general atmosphere of gunpowder-tinged recycled celluloid.
Perhaps I should strike 'small' from my list of adjectives describing Heights. Heights is ambitious in its number of story lines and the intricacy in which those stories slowly collide bringing about the film's final twist and resolution. (Though 'small' certainly applies when comparing the cash, hype and volume of Heights with the Blockbuster next door.) Director Chris Terrio's decision to tell his story through the slow convergence of various characters and discrete story lines is certainly not acinematicantic device - it is, in fact, a prominent trend particularly in art films (launched, perhaps, by Pulp Fiction)? But Terrio uses this devise skillfully, with purpose and without strain or pretension in Heights. "New York is the smallest place in the world for things like this", says Glen Close's Diana when she realizes the young actor, Alec, auditioning for her play lives in her daughter's apartment building. Diana and Alec's meeting is the most significant of the many lives overlapping by chance in Heights, a coincidence (when combined with Alec's mistakenly leaving his jacket at the audition) unravels the deception at the heart of the film.
As the film begins Isabel (Diana's daughter) and Jonathan, twenty-something professionals are weeks before their marriage, but Jonathan has a secret that is trailing him. He posed for and had an affair with a male photographer notorious for his gorgeous nude portraits and subsequent affairs with his models. A British journalist is in New York looking for Jonathan to interviewing him for an article about the artist's work and flings. Isabel discovers this secret soon after we in the audience. What shedoesn't we) doesn't know until the final sequence is Jonathan's liaison with the artist was not an 'experiment', he is in fact gay and having an affair with the actor, Alec, one floor below.
The unveiling of Jonathan's and Alec's affair may be Heights' biggest success. When we come upon Jonathan kissing Alec it is through the eyes of Isabel. We share all her initial shock and subsequent rush of recognition - all the subtle hints suggesting Jonathan's affair are suddenly clear. It is the way you imagine an affair being discovered in reality. Through trust (or fear?) you create reasons for your partner's unusual behavior until you discover your partner's infidelity and all those little uncertainties explode into clarity, so many little behaviors you did not understand are now clear. (It would be interesting to view Heights a second time to pick out the many little hints Terrio inserted suggesting Jonathan's infidelity.)
It would be wrong to assume that Heights is a film about homosexuality. It is not. Heights is a film about what one sacrifices, wisely or not, for one's lover. (Both Isabel and Alec give up a great career opportunity each for Jonathon.) Heights is a film about how easy it is to choose a passionless, safe relationship over a less mainstream relationship or over being alone. It is clear Jonathan loves Alec not Isabel yet he was willing to sconventionve for convenetion; and, it is clear Isabel was willing to marry someone she did not love because it was safe and acceptable. Isabel says to Jonathan: "What I felt most seeing you (kissing Alec) was relief. Now I have a way out". (And my god can I relate to Isabel's narrow escape from relationship mediocrity.)
But at its emotional-center Heights is mother/daughter story. Diana sees all along that there is no passion in her daughter's relationship, no risk, and she knows via experience how awful a choice safety can be. (Diana is in a sham 'open marriage', but her husband is on the verge of finally leaving her having found love through one his affairs.) Mother and daughter are alone yet together at the end; their shaken relationship redeemed. Isabel and Diana are simultaneous at low points (each having lost their lovers in the single day the film spans), and suddenly in positions of strength, having found each other again. They are crying together on the back step of Isabel's building but the overt feeling is positive - mother and daughter have come to a new understanding and appreciation of each other despite vast differences and are redeemed in a mother's and daughter's unconditional love.
We are left with this feeling of purity amid all the deception of Heights.
Should you see it: Yes, and enjoy the mature emotional tenor amidst the superheroes blowing things up in the adjacent theater.
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film - including the ending.
It is interesting to see what sticks in your mind a few days after viewing a film: a particular image, a bit of dialogue, some lingering emotional impact. In Heights it is the many close-ups of Glen Close's face. Close give a better performance and is more strikingly beautiful than I have seen her in any other of her films. (Admittedly that list is small.) Close dominates the film, a great accomplishment given her character, Diana, is tangential to the central plot; yet, her performance is the fulcrum that balances the various story lines slowly converging throughout Heights.
Also noteworthy is this film's existence in summertime. Heights is a small, well-acted, mature drama - adjectives rarely applied in this season of explosions, superheroes and general adolescence in film. It is this summer's Tadpole or The Housekeeper, a small breath of fine film making in a general atmosphere of gunpowder-tinged recycled celluloid.
Perhaps I should strike 'small' from my list of adjectives describing Heights. Heights is ambitious in its number of story lines and the intricacy in which those stories slowly collide bringing about the film's final twist and resolution. (Though 'small' certainly applies when comparing the cash, hype and volume of Heights with the Blockbuster next door.) Director Chris Terrio's decision to tell his story through the slow convergence of various characters and discrete story lines is certainly not acinematicantic device - it is, in fact, a prominent trend particularly in art films (launched, perhaps, by Pulp Fiction)? But Terrio uses this devise skillfully, with purpose and without strain or pretension in Heights. "New York is the smallest place in the world for things like this", says Glen Close's Diana when she realizes the young actor, Alec, auditioning for her play lives in her daughter's apartment building. Diana and Alec's meeting is the most significant of the many lives overlapping by chance in Heights, a coincidence (when combined with Alec's mistakenly leaving his jacket at the audition) unravels the deception at the heart of the film.
As the film begins Isabel (Diana's daughter) and Jonathan, twenty-something professionals are weeks before their marriage, but Jonathan has a secret that is trailing him. He posed for and had an affair with a male photographer notorious for his gorgeous nude portraits and subsequent affairs with his models. A British journalist is in New York looking for Jonathan to interviewing him for an article about the artist's work and flings. Isabel discovers this secret soon after we in the audience. What shedoesn't we) doesn't know until the final sequence is Jonathan's liaison with the artist was not an 'experiment', he is in fact gay and having an affair with the actor, Alec, one floor below.
The unveiling of Jonathan's and Alec's affair may be Heights' biggest success. When we come upon Jonathan kissing Alec it is through the eyes of Isabel. We share all her initial shock and subsequent rush of recognition - all the subtle hints suggesting Jonathan's affair are suddenly clear. It is the way you imagine an affair being discovered in reality. Through trust (or fear?) you create reasons for your partner's unusual behavior until you discover your partner's infidelity and all those little uncertainties explode into clarity, so many little behaviors you did not understand are now clear. (It would be interesting to view Heights a second time to pick out the many little hints Terrio inserted suggesting Jonathan's infidelity.)
It would be wrong to assume that Heights is a film about homosexuality. It is not. Heights is a film about what one sacrifices, wisely or not, for one's lover. (Both Isabel and Alec give up a great career opportunity each for Jonathon.) Heights is a film about how easy it is to choose a passionless, safe relationship over a less mainstream relationship or over being alone. It is clear Jonathan loves Alec not Isabel yet he was willing to sconventionve for convenetion; and, it is clear Isabel was willing to marry someone she did not love because it was safe and acceptable. Isabel says to Jonathan: "What I felt most seeing you (kissing Alec) was relief. Now I have a way out". (And my god can I relate to Isabel's narrow escape from relationship mediocrity.)
But at its emotional-center Heights is mother/daughter story. Diana sees all along that there is no passion in her daughter's relationship, no risk, and she knows via experience how awful a choice safety can be. (Diana is in a sham 'open marriage', but her husband is on the verge of finally leaving her having found love through one his affairs.) Mother and daughter are alone yet together at the end; their shaken relationship redeemed. Isabel and Diana are simultaneous at low points (each having lost their lovers in the single day the film spans), and suddenly in positions of strength, having found each other again. They are crying together on the back step of Isabel's building but the overt feeling is positive - mother and daughter have come to a new understanding and appreciation of each other despite vast differences and are redeemed in a mother's and daughter's unconditional love.
We are left with this feeling of purity amid all the deception of Heights.
Should you see it: Yes, and enjoy the mature emotional tenor amidst the superheroes blowing things up in the adjacent theater.
