The American friends
The Two Faces of January isn't just any old adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel (though it's not like those are thick on the ground). It's one of those grandiose passion projects you here tell about, a film that Hossein Amini has been nursing close to his breast for some 15 years or so, or not too long after the Oscar nomination he received for adapting The Wings of the Dove, and thus his entry into screenwriting's A-list. That's an awful long time to be carrying around one single project as the dream of one's entire career, particularly with January not really counting as one of Highsmith's more prominent or important books. And with all due respect to Amini, who makes his directorial debut with his long dreamt-of adaptation, it's a bit discouraging to think that 15 years of mental prep work could turn out such a perfectly ordinary, unexceptionally satisfactory film as this proves to be.
Like Highsmith's better-known and more successfully adapted The Talented Mr. Ripley, we begin with Americans bluntly touristing their way through Europe: it's 1962, and well-off Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) is exploring the ancient buildings in Athens with his much younger wife Collette (Kirsten Dunst). The educational value of this stopover is considerably improved when they meet Rydal (Oscar Isaac), another Yank, who has repatriated himself in Greece and makes a living as a tour guide for English speakers. But the thing is, everybody is lying. As Chester figures out almost immediately, Rydal is a simple con artist; as Rydal won't learn for a while yet, Chester and Collette are assumed names being used by the couple as they wait for the fall-out to die down from Chester's much larger con back in the States, where he bilked investors out of enough money to fill a hefty briefcase, at least. This secret pops out when Chester is caught by an American detective (David Warshofsky), whom he somewhat accidentally kills, and Rydal stumbles upon his attempt to hide the body. Chester passes this off with a feeble lie, and with undue speed, the MacFarlands are sneaking their way into Crete, with Rydal following first because of his very obvious sexual attraction to Collette, second because of his deeper, more potent emotional fixation on Chester. This being a Patricia Highsmith thriller, there are plenty more twists to come, and much lacerating psychology.
That is, at least, the intent. In execution, The Two Faces of January does a fine job with the mechanics of the plot, but it whiffs a bit on the characters; and the mechanics of the plot simply aren't fascinatingly unique enough for the characters to be as disposable as all that. The most shocking and unpredictable thing to happen onscreen turns out to be that a killer pairing like Mortensen and Isaac (and why not let's make it a trio: I know that Dunst isn't always everybody's favorite, but I certainly admire her work more often than not) can turn out such flat performances as the ones we see here. It's generally a race to the bottom, though Dunst comes off the worst; she can't even pull focus from her period hairdo and costuming. Mortensen, an actor given to tightly-wound tension and inner fire in even his most sedate performances, has a hard time finding a tone (he over-reacts in some almost comically large-ways), and Isaac is just limp, as limp as he can possibly be. There are decent moments scattered throughout - a wordless standoff between the men over a restaurant table is the film's obvious highlight as far as acting goes - but mostly, these feel like mannequins inhabiting the frame, not people.
Which kind of fits the film's primary characteristic: it is stylish above all, polished to a blinding sheen. Polished to the point that it almost feels lacquered. This is clearly not an outright strength, though it's not always such a sin. The stars of the show are not the characters, and not even the slitheriness of Highsmith's plot and Amini's additions thereto; the stars are the costumes designed by Steven Noble, and the gorgeous Greek and Cretan locations filmed with faded glossiness by Marcel Zyskind in an array of artfully bleached tones. If I suggest that The Two Faces of January is at its best when it's a fashion show among the ruins of Athens and Knossos, it perhaps sounds like I am being snotty to it, but that's not the case. The story is about people artfully employing surfaces to hide their ugly selves, is it not? A brittle engagement with '60s-era jet-set style and shallow glamor is baked into the story, and the film certainly evokes that period and that place with visuals that are sleek and sexy while also being a bit chilly and remote, suggesting a put-on throughout. "Mannequins" doesn't have to be an insult, in this context.
None of which does very much good to the story, mind you, which could perhaps use some of this formal sheen to augment its development, but it's not very exciting to see it fully replaced by that sheen (the late Anthony Minghella, whose son Max is on-hand as executive producer, struck this balance more cleanly in his Mr. Ripley). It's still a solid crime tragedy, taking no excess time to play out - the film is an agreeably tight 97 minutes - and there's simply no way to strip all the delectable acidity out of the storytelling. The film has a tendency towards slowness that I'm not sure entirely works - the '50s and '60s movie thrillers it's modelling weren't slow for the sake of it, but because they turned the heat up very gradually, but relentlessly, which isn't something that The Two Faces of January entirely works; once it enters its final stage, it moves forward without picking up steam, which is not a good thing for a thriller like this.
There's a classiness to it that transcends its subdued filmmaking - Highsmith works, even minor Highsmith, period, end of story - and if pressed, I suppose I'd say that it's not worth not watching the movie. But the best thrillers on this model, the ones by Alfred Hitchcock or Henri-Georges Clouzot, have a way of pushing through their seemingly inevitable chain of disasters in a way that makes your stomach turn sour and your skin feel clammy. They don't just tell a suitably intriguing story in a way that leaves you moderately interested in what happens next. And that's really all that The Two Faces of January can claim for itself.
Like Highsmith's better-known and more successfully adapted The Talented Mr. Ripley, we begin with Americans bluntly touristing their way through Europe: it's 1962, and well-off Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) is exploring the ancient buildings in Athens with his much younger wife Collette (Kirsten Dunst). The educational value of this stopover is considerably improved when they meet Rydal (Oscar Isaac), another Yank, who has repatriated himself in Greece and makes a living as a tour guide for English speakers. But the thing is, everybody is lying. As Chester figures out almost immediately, Rydal is a simple con artist; as Rydal won't learn for a while yet, Chester and Collette are assumed names being used by the couple as they wait for the fall-out to die down from Chester's much larger con back in the States, where he bilked investors out of enough money to fill a hefty briefcase, at least. This secret pops out when Chester is caught by an American detective (David Warshofsky), whom he somewhat accidentally kills, and Rydal stumbles upon his attempt to hide the body. Chester passes this off with a feeble lie, and with undue speed, the MacFarlands are sneaking their way into Crete, with Rydal following first because of his very obvious sexual attraction to Collette, second because of his deeper, more potent emotional fixation on Chester. This being a Patricia Highsmith thriller, there are plenty more twists to come, and much lacerating psychology.
That is, at least, the intent. In execution, The Two Faces of January does a fine job with the mechanics of the plot, but it whiffs a bit on the characters; and the mechanics of the plot simply aren't fascinatingly unique enough for the characters to be as disposable as all that. The most shocking and unpredictable thing to happen onscreen turns out to be that a killer pairing like Mortensen and Isaac (and why not let's make it a trio: I know that Dunst isn't always everybody's favorite, but I certainly admire her work more often than not) can turn out such flat performances as the ones we see here. It's generally a race to the bottom, though Dunst comes off the worst; she can't even pull focus from her period hairdo and costuming. Mortensen, an actor given to tightly-wound tension and inner fire in even his most sedate performances, has a hard time finding a tone (he over-reacts in some almost comically large-ways), and Isaac is just limp, as limp as he can possibly be. There are decent moments scattered throughout - a wordless standoff between the men over a restaurant table is the film's obvious highlight as far as acting goes - but mostly, these feel like mannequins inhabiting the frame, not people.
Which kind of fits the film's primary characteristic: it is stylish above all, polished to a blinding sheen. Polished to the point that it almost feels lacquered. This is clearly not an outright strength, though it's not always such a sin. The stars of the show are not the characters, and not even the slitheriness of Highsmith's plot and Amini's additions thereto; the stars are the costumes designed by Steven Noble, and the gorgeous Greek and Cretan locations filmed with faded glossiness by Marcel Zyskind in an array of artfully bleached tones. If I suggest that The Two Faces of January is at its best when it's a fashion show among the ruins of Athens and Knossos, it perhaps sounds like I am being snotty to it, but that's not the case. The story is about people artfully employing surfaces to hide their ugly selves, is it not? A brittle engagement with '60s-era jet-set style and shallow glamor is baked into the story, and the film certainly evokes that period and that place with visuals that are sleek and sexy while also being a bit chilly and remote, suggesting a put-on throughout. "Mannequins" doesn't have to be an insult, in this context.
None of which does very much good to the story, mind you, which could perhaps use some of this formal sheen to augment its development, but it's not very exciting to see it fully replaced by that sheen (the late Anthony Minghella, whose son Max is on-hand as executive producer, struck this balance more cleanly in his Mr. Ripley). It's still a solid crime tragedy, taking no excess time to play out - the film is an agreeably tight 97 minutes - and there's simply no way to strip all the delectable acidity out of the storytelling. The film has a tendency towards slowness that I'm not sure entirely works - the '50s and '60s movie thrillers it's modelling weren't slow for the sake of it, but because they turned the heat up very gradually, but relentlessly, which isn't something that The Two Faces of January entirely works; once it enters its final stage, it moves forward without picking up steam, which is not a good thing for a thriller like this.
There's a classiness to it that transcends its subdued filmmaking - Highsmith works, even minor Highsmith, period, end of story - and if pressed, I suppose I'd say that it's not worth not watching the movie. But the best thrillers on this model, the ones by Alfred Hitchcock or Henri-Georges Clouzot, have a way of pushing through their seemingly inevitable chain of disasters in a way that makes your stomach turn sour and your skin feel clammy. They don't just tell a suitably intriguing story in a way that leaves you moderately interested in what happens next. And that's really all that The Two Faces of January can claim for itself.
Categories: crime pictures, needless adaptations, thrillers
