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The Age of Commercialism

The first must-see film of the year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This version of The Magnificent Ambersons certainly has a lot going for it with wonderful sets and cinematography. Color also gives I think a picture of Booth Tarkington's Indiana during the Theodore Roosevelt years. I agree with another reviewer that the celebrated version done by Orson Welles has a more Gothic look to it.Whatever Orson Welles did had to have his personal imprimatur on it and this one does not have that individual stamp of anybody in terms of the performances of the players. The story does stick pretty well to the one Welles gave us 71 years ago.Before The Magnificent Ambersons is anything else it's a Hoosier romance. Back when Indiana was in its frontier days the Ambersons were the local Cartwrights with a Ponderosa like estate. James Cromwell the current patriarch is like Ben Cartwright if you can imagine Lorne Greene aged and infirm. But instead of useful sons, the family line has watered down to Jonathan Rhys-Davies an arrogant twit of a grandson who expects to live the life of leisure and deal with 'riff-raff' as little as possible. A job, a profession, heaven forbid.Into the lives of the Ambersons comes Bruce Greenwood who has some history with Madeline Stowe, Rhys-Davies mother. So the young man develops an intense dislike for Greenwood who is a self made man who has invented his version of the horseless carriage and making good money at it.As in the Welles version the story of the one way antagonism of Rhys-Davies to Greenwood is the story. This version does not have the stamp of an auteur like Orson Welles, but I think this one has its own merits.

The idea of redoing a classic movie is an intriguing one and the idea of doing one that allegedly got chopped by unfeeling studio hands, such as purportedly happened to Orson Welles and his version of this, is provocative, especially if they say are actually going to shoot from the original precut screenplay. At first, things seem promising and there are some fine actors doing some interesting things, and the production is handsome. But I could not figure out why I was not enjoying what was obviously a well- intentioned and lavish production. Then it dawned on me -- Rhys-Meyers performance was not simply of an unpleasant character, but a callow-seeming actor frowning and grimacing his way through an entire movie -- poisoning the drama at its core. It is truly the most painfully misconceived performance I can ever recall seeing in a major serious movie. It sinks the entire enterprise. The casting director and overall director must take responsibility. How could they not see at least halfway through the shooting of this that Rhys-Meyers work was an empty annoying hole at the center. Was he cast a a personal favor to someone? It seems inexplicable.

I'd always heard that "The Magnificent Ambersons" was Orson Welles' masterpiece, but had never seen it until I got the two versions out of the public library. Now I'm even MORE curious about both the novel and Welles' screenplay. Welles' may have been ahead of his time cinematically, but the current version lacks bite largely because the storyline is outdated.Lacking a narrative voice-over, the remake presents events and motivations more clearly through visuals and dialogue. I thought the new casting was near-perfect in terms of character types, and the settings were visually stunning. In th A&E version the viewer comes to mourn the loss of old- time aristocratic splendor, which in the Welles' version has a vaguely Gothic feel. Both versions, however, fail to absorb the viewer emotionally completely. Georgie definitely deserves a comeuppance, but neither version carries the full impact or allows the characters to grow to tragic stature.

Of course, even watching the Wells' version was like watching a completely different story than the actual Tarkington novel. The novel is so full of subtlety and nuance (and narration) that I suppose it would be hard for any film to capture it. But this TV flick seems to have been bourne out of some sort of bizarre class called Freud 101. A protective son, yes, but incestuous overtones??? By the way, where is the Midwest? It may have been an affluent family, but early-20th century Indianapolis bore no resemblance to this. Misty moors? Grand hilltop vistas? It's the Midwest for crying out loud! There were wooded estates then as now, but the book is rather specific in describing very public homes that were not removed from the peering eyes of the masses. It was kind of a main point.Now, if one were to simply avoid comparison with the book, I suppose it could have worked rather nicely as a Lifetime/Harlequin movie. The settings, scenes, and costumes were all rather pleasant in an escapist way.