MY WIFE IS AN ACTRESS (Yvan Attal, 2002)

Reviewed: July 19, 2002

I suppose this tortuous movie was inevitable. The day Ed Burns married an actress (another inevitably given his roster of girlfriends including Heather Graham and Christy Turlington), this is the film he was going to make. Should I just count my blessings that we got the film outta the way without having to see Burns' pompous mug in the lead role? Maybe. Though regardless, My Wife Is An Actress is a rancid pile of swill.

Philanthropic word of advice to Hollywood producers: snatch up the rights to My Wife Is An Actress, hire a snazzy wordsmith (ideally Richard Curtis) to completely overhaul the script and immediately remake the film as the sequel to Roger Michell's charming Notting Hill (w/original Notting cast reprising their roles). My Wife's basic story outline--of an average guy husband insanely jealous of his movie star wife while she's shooting a new film with an attractive co-star--is the ideal footnote to Notting Hill's coupling of average guy Hugh Grant and movie star Julia Roberts.

Continuing my generosity I will go so far as to broadly sketch every major change that needs to be made, and in the process, every reason My Wife Is An Actress fails so miserably as to be unable to weigh in as even a featherweight romantic comedy.

1) Add character flavor and a "happier times" preface. Then again, the brilliance of remaking My Wife Is An Actress as Notting Hill Part Duex is that this biggest Wife problem is nearly fixed right off the bat. See, My Wife Is An Actress is infuriating in the way it thrusts us into the center of the main characters' martial crisis without every showing A) Why they are together in the first place. B) Why/how/if they were ever happy together. I saw no reason these characters would ever fall in love. The average Joe is absurdly possessive and intensely un-likable, lacking the seductive charisma Hugh Grant provided in spades in Notting Hill (as he does in virtually every role he's ever tackled). The actress is a sweet blank (btw the actress that plays her--Charlotte Gainsbourg--looks like a pretty, youngish "If They Mated..." between Linda Fiorentino and Holly Hunter). Both leads are limp caricatures who argue endlessly, and I never cared a bit about their problems.

Note: admittedly there is a suck-ass voice-over intro that espouses some mumbo-jumbo about how average guy met movie star actress (I think), but it didn't make much sense to me and was over about the same time it began. I had no idea how long this couple had been together. Even if they were only newlyweds (a logical guess), I couldn't help but constantly wonder why they never ran into all the jealously/sharing my wife with the public problems during their courtship. A dispiriting omen of huge, evil contrivances to come.

On the other hand: If My Wife Is An Actress were Notting Hill 2, we'd have already experienced two fun hours of the intricacies of the two leads' bonding.

2) Vastly punch up the jokes, or rather, create them from scratch (since none currently exist). My Wife Is An Actress is simply not funny and I predicted most of the gags a scene in advance (not too hard when everything is setup via lame soundbyte intros). The humor is pedestrian and my audience's heartiest guffaws came from an incredibly contrived, somewhat stupid centerpiece in which after the actress tells her director she won't do her nude scene unless the crew comes to the set naked that day as well... the crew does just that! Oh, and ::gasp:: average guy happens to visit the set that very same day! I only smiled and that was probably the best piece of comedy in the film.

3) Ax an unnecessary story appendage, aka an absolutely terrible subplot involving average guy's sister, her husband and their endless debate as to whether or not they should circumcise their son. Replace with an interesting subplot involving Hugh Grant's ex-girlfriend in Notting Hill (you know, the wheelchair bound beauty who gave birth at the end of the film) and her husband that actually ties into the main plot. Frankly, My Wife's appendage felt like a pathetic attempt to mimic those Notting Hill characters anyway, so this potential full circle of sorts is entirely appropriate. I can't emphasize this advice enough. My Wife's subplot is utterly pointless, interrupting the main plot at entirely random spots and needlessly destroying whatever tiny ounce of momentary interest our protagonists had generated. It's really painful to sit through and I'd like someone to tell me what the fuck the appendage has to do with anything, anyhow.

4) Jesus Christ, at least try and make some of the plot turns plausible! My Wife Is An Actress is nothing more than a dumb repetitive cycle that goes like this: Someone coincidentally says something out of the blue to average guy to spur his jealously. Average guy visits actress wife on movie set to try and quash his jealously. But--without fail--instead of his jealously being quashed he happens upon his wife in some awkward coincidence (such as aforementioned nudity day) that only upsets him more. Then he goes back home to mope. Lather, rinse, repeat. Wahoo.

5) Allow Terrace Stamp to reprise his role as the actress' onset actor/suitor, but expand the character giving him more bite and more scenes with average Joe. My Wife Is An Actress' most effective scene is a pungent conversation between Joe and Stamp. Yet inexplicably, overall Stamp is criminally underused. His suitor is an absolute dope, a shallow loser who no reasonable husband would ever be jealous of. So he's a good-lucking movie star, big deal. He's also a fucking lame-o and a poor wanna-be painter to boot. Average Joe must not think very highly of his wife to actually believe she'd fall for such a cretin. In fact even the filmmaker knows there's no sensible reason anyone would fall for Stamp's character, thus the reason provided for actress' eventual husband-swapping is simply average Joe pushed her into Stamp's arms via his incessant jealous whining. Fuck that. There's ample unexplored terrain here, ripe for delicious comedy. And in the few glimpses afforded us, the always-fantastic Stamp proves more than up to his casting challenge.

6) Redo the entire third act. Cause what's there now is insulting, dissatisfying garbage. Average Joe pushes actress away. Her relationship with Stamp obviously immediately hits the rocks. Average Joe tries dating someone else, then realizes (as told us in excruciating voice-over) he misses actress. Amazingly they wind up outside the same night club on the same night and then reconcile for no discernible reason. I give them less than a week before Average Joe becomes acutely jealous again.

A note about preexisting Notting Hill/My Wife Is An Actress synergy:

A) Notting Hill stars Hugh Grant... who recently starred in the great About a Boy... which featured a soundtrack created exclusively by Badly Drawn Boy... who also provided a song to My Wife Is An Actress.

B) Both Notting Hill and My Wife Is An Actress feature gags involving their movie star protagonists at press junkets.

And finally: The writer/director of My Wife Is An Actress, Yvan Attal, is the same guy who plays the average Joe (also named Yvan. Wahoo.). His real life wife is--you guessed it--none other than My Wife Is An Actress star Charlotte Gainsbourg (her character is named you know what). Hence critics have been expressing curiosity as to just how autobiographical the film is. I think I know the answer-- not very much. I bet Charlotte and Yvan have a fine, sturdy marriage in real life. Cause if Yvan had the resources to draw on truly personal, painful experiences grounded in reality he would have birthed a much stronger, more believable film.

If Notting Hill 2 gets made using my advice, I expect a handful of residual checks.

Return home.