UPSIDE Weir has proven he can take a comedian (Robin
Williams) and make a dramatic hit (Dead Poets Society).
DOWNSIDE With a budget topping $60 million, Paramount may
wish Carrey had just put on a happy face.
THE RAINMAKER
STARRING Matt Damon, Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover,
Virginia Madsen, Mary Kay Place, Mickey Rourke, Andrew Shue,
Teresa Wright, Jon Voight
DIRECTED BY Francis Ford Coppola
In this corner: John Grisham, a best-selling novelist well known for his ability to drive filmmakers nuts. In the opposite corner: an Oscar-winning director well known for his ability to drive himself nuts. Could have been a spectacular bout, but The Rainmaker — based on Grisham's novel about a naive young lawyer (Courage Under Fire's Damon) battling an evil insurance conglomerate — turned out to be a notably nonviolent production. ''I was terrified going into this,'' admits producer Steven Reuther. ''I knew about Francis' legendary reputation. I'd seen the documentary about him that his wife [Eleanor] did about the making of Apocalypse Now. But he and Grisham treated each other with great respect.''
The actors got along with Coppola as well, although Voight, as a villainous insurance-company lawyer, did worry about Mrs. C., who is considering making another documentary. ''I kept seeing her on the set with her camera,'' he says. ''One day I just turned to her and said, 'You are dangerous!' '' (Nov. 14)
UPSIDE A great ensemble cast, an occasionally brilliant
director, one of Grisham's brightest, funniest books.
DOWNSIDE Audiences may find the seventh Grisham film in
under five years guilty of overkill.
OSCAR & LUCINDA
STARRING Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Ciaran Hinds, Tom
Wilkinson, Bille Brown
DIRECTED BY Gillian Armstrong
The course of true love never did run smooth. Just ask Armstrong, who first laid adoring eyes on the manuscript of Peter Carey's 1988 Booker Prize winner a decade ago but passed on adapting it to film because she thought it couldn't be affordably done. After director John Schlesinger dropped into and out of the project, Armstrong pounced, spending nearly five years refining the script — about a priest and his heiress soul mate — and raising the $13 million required (a vast sum for an Aussie film). The greatest trial of all: shooting the transport of a full-scale glass chapel down a river in a rain forest. ''It rained every 15 minutes,'' recalls Armstrong. ''The crew were constantly up and down ladders wiping off the glass.'' During the shoot, a flood forced Blanchett and Fiennes to wear waist-high plastic bags below camera range. ''Every morning I felt I was in over my head,'' says Blanchett, speaking both literally and figuratively. ''But I do like a challenge.'' (Nov. 7)
UPSIDE Armstrong was smart enough to sign Fiennes before The
English Patient.
DOWNSIDE Adapting Carey's multilayered
romanticism to the screen may be even trickier than transporting
a chapel down a river.
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