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Knight at the Movies: Gray Matters and Zodiac
by Richard Knight, Jr.
2007-03-07

This article shared 4050 times since Wed Mar 7, 2007
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Bridget Moynahan, Gloria Gaynor and Heather Graham ( from left ) in Gray Matters.

___________

'Christ, was I drunk last night' was the phrase closeted gay men used to say to each other after waking up with one another. That's an apt phrase to describe writer-director Sue Kramer's feature debut, Gray Matters. This alcohol-fueled comedy is fun and playful at moments ( especially at the outset ) but, eventually, its reliance on clichéd matters of the heart makes it about as fresh as that shopworn phrase.

Sam and Gray ( portrayed, respectively, by the dreamy Tom Cavanagh and the dreamy Heather Graham ) are as close as pages in a book. They share loves of dancing and old movies, and aren't the least bit taken aback when strangers mistake them for a couple madly in love instead of a brother and sister. But the partnership is suddenly divided in two when they encounter the gorgeous Charlie ( Bridget Moynahan ) in Central Park. In an instant, both realize they've found The One. After a shared dinner in which brother and sister each compete for Charlie's attention, it becomes clear that Sam has the upper hand.

With lightning speed, Sam and Charlie are jetting out to Vegas for a quickie wedding. Naturally, Gray goes along and during a last girls' night out, she and Charlie share a bubble bath ( Really? Friends do that? ) , sing I Will Survive along with Gloria Gaynor and drunkenly make out. But there is no sheepish 'Christ, was I drunk last night' scene for Charlie—who truly, truly loves Tom. This bittersweet irony puts the double whammy on Gray, who was expecting a different fairy-tale ending. Now, she's faced with realizing that she's gay and that the woman she's in love with has just married her best friend—her brother.

Kramer has obviously studied Woody Allen's playbook and the movie is stuffed with dotty eccentrics given odd characteristics—like Gray's therapist, played by Sissy Spacek, who prefers to have sessions while bowling or rock climbing; and Alan Cumming as a poetic, lovelorn cab driver besotted with Gray. Though both do their usual excellent work ( and Cumming is particularly fine in a very charming rooftop picnic scene with Graham ) , the characters stick out like sore thumbs in an already hard-to-believe premise.

But the film's biggest drawback, other than her character's predictability, is Graham. She is given seemingly pages of Kramer's detailed dialogue to rattle off in an effort to make her seem kooky and lovable. But the actress, who is poorly directed, gives a mostly shrill performance done almost entirely with clenched fingers and flailing arms. After a while you just want Gray to take a chill pill and, for God's sake, stop kvetching already. Graham is a fine, intelligent actor ( whose smartness is often overlooked because of her beauty and luscious physicality ) . However, she has yet to find a role that tops her thrilling and sexy performance in Boogie Nights. And it's not that Graham can't play comedy; her hilarious work in Steve Martin's Bowfinger attests to that.

This bouncy romantic comedy starts high, teeters and, though it doesn't fall completely to earth, never—with the exception of the Alan Cumming scene—exactly levitates again.

Audiences conditioned after a hundred years of movies and a half century of crime detective TV shows have come to expect a satisfactory resolve—the vicarious thrill of outwitting the cops and the last-minute dramatic slaying of the murderer. And those expectations are the huge buzzkill hanging over David Fincher's Zodiac, the director's film version of the reign of terror wreaked by the self-proclaimed serial killer over the San Francisco area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ( The Zodiac Killer was never caught. )

The unnerving story of the Zodiac killer seems like the perfect match for the man who made Se7en, Alien 3, The Game and Panic Room. ( His homoerotic camp classic Fight Club is a movie category unto itself. ) Zodiac incorporates the director's stated preference to 'scare' an audience, but he's now also interested in the demons infecting his characters rather than the situations themselves.

It's the cumulative effect of the unsolved killings that gnaw at the characters in Zodiac ( and leaves the greatest residue after the movie ) . The lead homicide detective on the case, the animal cracker-chewing David Toschi ( Mark Ruffalo ) ; San Francisco Chronicle news reporter Paul Avery ( Robert Downey, Jr. ) ; and, especially, the paper's cartoonist and onlooker, Robert Graysmith ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) , all find themselves so obsessed with discovering the killer's true identity that it adversely impacts their lives.

Fincher gives you a lot over the dozen years that the movie covers. He also captures the look and feel of the period beautifully and the movie is helped by its choice of retro songs and the unobtrusive score of David Shire. Gyllenhall ( in his first screen foray since Brokeback Mountain ) , Downey and Ruffalo, along with a year's supply of great character actors, do superlative work with their sometimes thinly written parts.

But eventually the myriad of theories and suspects fatigue the audience and I noted a lot of watch-glancing and text-messaging around me as the movie wore on.

By the way, why doesn't anyone ever suggest the obvious possibility of two killers working in tandem and writing different parts of the notes to fool the analyst?

The mystery of The Zodiac Killer, as noted, has never been solved. We knew that up front, but that doesn't make Zodiac any less of a tantalizing or ultimately frustrating movie.

You can find my archived reviews at www.windycitytimes.com or www.knightatthemovies.com . Feedback can be left at the latter Web site.


This article shared 4050 times since Wed Mar 7, 2007
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