Stars: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachel Lefevre, Scott Speedman
Director: Richard J. Lewis
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Makeup)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
Part of reviewing movies is being able to separate the idea from the execution. Sometimes, there are movies that are beyond mundane in their ideas (yet another meet-cute, yet another biopic, yet another superhero saves the world), that can work if the acting, writing, and direction stay sharp. On the other hand (on the Barney's Version hand), you can have a clever, well-rounded story idea that never quite gets to where it's going because it meanders and loses focus.Barney's Version tells the tale of Barney Panofsky (Giamatti), a Canadian TV producer with a massive womanizing and drinking problem, and during the first half of the film, we see him through the eyes of the three women he chose to marry (not necessarily the three women he chose to love, however). It's unclear at first what the goal of the film is, and it becomes hazy as to why Barney is randomly remembering certain things, and the first third is horribly edited (the film cuts from a confrontation with a detective to a flashback that is wholly and completely unrelated to what the detective is talking about), though after a while you start to catch on, though the random editing is a bit opportunistic when you find the "explanation."
(Spoilers ahead) The film takes us through the three marriages of Barney's life, first his unfortunate one to a mentally ill woman (Lefevre, and yes, I believe this is the role that cost her that plum part in Twilight Saga: Eclipse) whom he assumes he knocked up, and whom he is mildly responsible for the death of (the woman had just given birth, to a baby that was clearly not the child of Barney, and in this act of betrayal he completely abandons her despite his knowing her mental health issues, and she commits suicide). Barney moves on from her, and meets his second wife, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family (Driver) who interestingly enough doesn't have a name (again, this works into the ending a bit), and her character comes across as a spoiled, shrill stereotype (to Driver's credit, she does what she can with the role, but over-the-top obnoxious is hard to dampen). Of course, being that Barney has already shown himself to be a massive cad, he actually tries to run away with another woman at the ceremony named Miriam (Pike) who does end up being the love of his life, and eventually becomes his third wife.
His rampant infidelity doesn't end there, though, and while he tames it for a while, he eventually becomes jealous of Miriam's relationship with another man (whom she eventually marries, but didn't cheat with), and has a one-night stand with a fan who ends his wonderful marriage. He spends the final third of the movie trying to win back the love of his life, and as the film starts to close, we see that he has been suffering from the early stages of dementia as the film progresses, and all of these memories are about to be gone.
Again, it's an interesting concept for a movie, but it doesn't work for a couple of reasons. For starters, the dementia angle is hinted at way too quickly-it's very obvious from the beginning that he is starting to lose it, and the "big reveal" doesn't quite work because it's more of a "duh" moment. Secondly, it doesn't work because when a movie completely shifts focus two-thirds of the way through, it risks making the previous two-thirds of the film seem totally unnecessary. Why, for example, is such a huge part of Barney's life spent on his being accused of murdering his best friend (Speedman) when in the end there is such little connection between Barney and his best friend? If it's a commentary on how we don't know what things mattered while we were doing them, that gets lost completely on-screen and is too big of a leap for the audience to credit the writers. The film is based on a novel, and it feels like a number of things got lost in translation.
There are some solid performances throughout the film, particularly Hoffman as an aging, abrasive cop who has had a good life but nothing particularly special about it. Paul Giamatti won the Golden Globe for his performance, so he may not have been entirely out of the running for his second Oscar nomination, and he does have his moments. However, his persistent shift from zero to a thousand with all of his characters wears a bit (how come every single one of his characters have the exact same rage issues?), and though he probably deserved it out of one of the weakest lineups in Golden Globe history, there is nothing really special about this turn. Caveat: seriously, I've never seen anything quite that lineup before-The Tourist and Love and Other Drugs and Alice in Wonderland and Casino Jack are your competition?!? Where was Michael Cera for the delightfully absurd Scott Pilgrim?!?
With this cast you'd assume the film received an acting or a writing nomination to be included in the OVP, but in fact it was in the Best Makeup category that it was featured. While it is impressive and subtle that they kept the same actors throughout the movie and just aged them frontwards and sideways, I feel like this is done in almost every other film, and while more is more is typically the way the Oscars go in this category and one should be proud of a less is more sort of situation, the reality is that this is a less is less sort of scene: hair dye, new hairstyles, and a couple of prosthetics do not an Oscar nomination make. I've still got one more to go in this category, but I have to believe that Rick Baker's going to be earning his first OVP Oscar if The Way Back doesn't get in the way (terrible, I know, but it's early).
What about you-what'd you think of Barney's Version? Do you wish that Paul Giamatti would be able to play a different style of character? What sort of role would spice up Minnie Driver's career? And what would have been the correct lineup for the Best Actor in a Comedy category at the Golden Globes?
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