CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (George Clooney, 2002) R

Reviewed: December 31st, 2002

At first reveling in its zaniness, then gradually shifting its madcap sensibility to profound sadness, to even call this a biopic is to entirely miss the point. Multiple reviews have bemoaned the movie's refusal to devote much time to Chuck Barris's television shows (The Dating Game, The Gong Show, The Newlywed Game et al.), an irrelevant and myopic complaint. The incomparable Charlie Kaufman has taken the fantasies of a unique dreamer (Barris) and melded them with his own #1 preoccupation: failure. This is the story of a successful entertainer who is not content to be merely such. Barris needs his delusions of grandeur (I'm an assassin for the CIA!) to offset what he feels is the miserable triviality of his modest accomplishments (creating silly game shows); the scene with an impossibly beautiful and pool-bound woman making fun of Barris and his work for its inability to compare to an achievement on the scale of the Sistine Chapel is the most telling in the film. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the kind of art for which the term unreliable narrator was coined: difficult to get ahold of, demanding repeat viewings, Confessions is packed and scattered, though eventually the method to its madness is revealed. Running across the film is Barris's erratic relationship with Drew Barrymore's Penny, a sprightly and hilarious dame, given some of Kaufman's most dazzling lines while made sexy and desirable and whip-smart as Barrymore effectively channels all her strengths into the part. Opposite her stands Sam Rockwell in a stunning tour de force as Barris, shifting all the way from manic to anxious to playful to relaxed to depressed on a moment's notice, his gravely voice-over (written by Kaufman as a brilliant comedy/pathos cocktail) ascribing Barris's plight to be remembered an unforgettable resonance (the film's final few lines are neck and neck with Punch-Drunk Love's closer for the best cappers of the year). First time director George Clooney's acting and pacing instincts are dead on; unfortunately his cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel's accompanying visuals are hit or miss, often laying on the flair too thick while lacking any sort of stylistic consistency. For the first forty-five minutes, much to the film's detriment, Clooney and Sigel seem to pick a given scene's film stock by drawing scraps of paper from a hat. Eventually they settle down, however, and their constant willingness to take bold visual risks does yield some of the most affecting images of the year (Barris walking down a snowy alleyway after a hit; Barris and Penny's blurred bodies blending in bed; Barris and his CIA recruiter's breathy, silhouetted rendezvous).

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