THE BEST
1. Reversal of Fortune
Without a doubt, the crowning achievement
of this movie is Jeremy Irons' masterfully droll performance as Claus
von Bülow, the ghoulish aristocrat who may or may not have attempted
to murder his rich, depressed, socialite wife (Glenn Close). Irons
does something far more perverse than getting you to ''care'' about
Claus — he gets you to like him. Yet what finally makes Barbet
Schroeder's reenactment of the Von Bülow affair a truly great movie
is the spine-tingling ambiguity with which it views Claus' conduct.
Ushering us behind the mausoleum-like walls of the Von Bülows'
Newport estate, the film offers many contrasting versions of the
events, holding contradictory bits of evidence up to the light with a
Rashomon-like dexterity. By the end, it almost doesn't matter whether
Von Bülow actually tried to kill his wife or simply stood by and
watched her sink into suicidal despair. The real question is whether
there's any difference.
2. Men Don't Leave
Though it never got the audience it deserved, this wonderfully
funny and touching domestic weeper is an exhilarating contradiction:
a happy movie about depression. It's the story of a newly widowed
mother (Jessica Lange) and her two sons and how they struggle to
remain a unit without Dad, their cornerstone. That may sound like the
plot of a dozen made-for-TV movies, but Men Don't Leave has something
that is fast disappearing from American films: a genuine emotional
texture. Director Paul Brickman — this is his first film since 1983's
Risky Business — empathizes with everyone on screen, keeping the point
of view shifting and elusive. Though rooted in the pain of sudden
loss, Men Don't Leave is really about the pleasure and the sadness of
growing up. It's the rare case of a sentimental movie that earns
every one of its tears — and believe me, you shed them.
3. A Shock to the System
A black comedy played very, very close to the bone. When Michael
Caine, as a New York advertising executive up for promotion, is
passed over to make room for a tight-lipped specimen of yuppus scumus(Peter Riegert), his revenge is so extreme — he becomes a happily
self-justified killer — and, at the same time, so believable that
identifying with him becomes a delirious and dizzying experience. The
fun of the movie is that we're watching a ruthless killer portrayed
by one of the most wittily humane actors alive. Caine's performance
is a wonder; it's as if he were playing Jekyll and Hyde at the same
time. You keep rooting for him even as you're appalled by his
behavior, and the movie pulls you into deeper and deeper levels of
amoral glee.
