bill irwin Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Note: The following includes potential spoilers

When I first saw Rachel Getting Married in the middle of the Toronto maelstrom, I knew I'd have to see it again before I could write or speak about it coherently. I was sure that I liked it, but not how much -- I couldn't quite make heads or tails of the last third of the film, and having to rush off to another film prevented me from thinking about it. This week, I finally got my second viewing; I like it a lot. But what struck me the most this time around was Bill Irwin's astonishing turn as Paul Buckman, the tortured, loving father of the bride. Irwin has not gotten much love in the reviews, and that is a travesty. He gives the richest, most generous performance I've seen from anyone this year.

The IMDb informs me that Irwin, a veteran character actor, is a mainstay on Sesame Street; Wikipedia reveals that he's a clown by trade. This makes perfect sense, and indeed helps explain his complete humility in Rachel Getting Married. Remember the scene where Rosemarie DeWitt's Rachel, in the middle of an argument with Kym (Anne Hathaway), drops the bombshell that she's pregnant? Paul's reaction might be the film's most memorable moment -- he flips out, screaming and bunny-hopping over to his daughter (it's a testament to Jonathan Demme's brilliance that he puts this in the background of the shot); after things calm down a bit, he still looks like he is about to lovingly devour his family. The way he paws at his wife while randomly growling "Does anybody want a sandwich?!" is worth ten dollars all on its own.

Rachel Getting Married is a terse, smart, funny and tough family drama about forgiveness and failure written by Jenny Lumet; it's also a loose, smart, broad and bright film about family and love directed by Jonathan Demme. When these two things are in sync, the end result is something truly impressive – a moving story that appeals to your heart and soul without insulting your intelligence, a film full of big scenes that never stoops to the most obvious possible iteration of those big scenes, a movie loaded with great and sincere performances from the top down. When the two parts of Rachel Getting Married fall out of synch – as they do, most notably, in the last third of the film during Demme's raucous, joyous post-wedding reception – it's less catastrophic than it is curious, and the final film is still very much worth watching.

Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is getting married; her little sister Kym (Anne Hathaway) is coming for the big event ... which involves getting picked up from her most recent stay at a rehab clinic. A cynic could look at Hathaway's part in Rachel Getting Married and paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder: Always go full rehab. And while it's true that the Academy and critics tend to reward gritty, hyperbolic portraits of drug-addiction's misery, the fact is that Hathaway's Kym is not quite as simple as that. Kym knows all the things she's done wrong; she also knows she'll keep doing some of them. Immediately, in the car, the lines of battle are drawn, with Kym going on the offense as part of her defense mechanisms, asking her dad (Bill Irwin) and step-mother (Anna Deavere Smith) about how Rachel's holding up: "Are all of her latent food issues coming up? Is she still hoarding Snickers and Cool Whip under the bed?" Soon, Kym's plunged into the thick of the preparations for Rachel's wedding, responding to the chaos by adding to it. ...

There's a new script gearing up for production for Sony Classics, and while we know pretty much nothing about what it will entail, we do know the names behind it -- which aren't too shabby. Dancing with Shiva is a new ensemble comedy from Jenny Lumet, who just happens to be Sidney Lumet's daughter. While this is her first feature script, she has done a few roles over the years as an actress, her most popular being 1988's Running on Empty. Jonathan Demme has been tapped to direct and produce the film, and a solid cast has already been lined up.

Anne Hathaway, who just became Jane Austen, will star, with Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle, Bill Irwin (who I always mix up with My So-Called Life dad Tom Irwin), The West Wing's Anna Deveare Smith and that Dangerous Woman, Debra Winger co-starring. The movie will head into production after Demme finishes He Comes in Peace, which means sometime next month in the wonderful state of Connecticut. Since it's all coming together soon, we shouldn't have too long to wait to hear what this whole thing is about. Being that there isn't anything more to say on the project, I'll throw my dancing wish out there -- I want to see some Skinny Legs and All dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils, with an anthropomorphized can of beans, dirty sock, painted stick, conch shell and spoon -- preferably with Terry Gilliam directing. Now that would be a dance!

The centerpiece of Express Stops Only, a short film program playing at Tribeca, is Raving, from first-time writer/director Julia Stiles. Starring Zooey Deschanel and Bill Irwin, the film centers around two possibly dangerous Manhattan misfits who try to figure each other out and end up engaging in an uneasy friendship, of sorts. Zooey is a street scammer, hustling people for drinking money with a song and dance about how she got hooked up with bad people and was left behind all alone, in the big bad city. Irwin's character is a straight-laced man who shows up at an office every morning, swipes a card at a security station and acts outraged when it doesn't work. We never learn whether he worked there or if he's just a complete lunatic who likes to show up at office buildings and cause a scene. Stiles shows a sure hand for offbeat comedy her first time around, keeping us engaged in the interplay between the two weirdos without ever tipping her hand as to where this thing is going. There's a nice musical finale.

Say Can You See is a creepy animation short that imagines 9/11 and its aftermath through the eyes of the those high-powered binocular stations on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. With the eye-holes already in place, it's an easy transition to anthropomorphize them as sad, contemplative watchmen who have a clear line of sight to see what's going on downtown but can do nothing about it. This isn't a talky short or something aimed at children, but a music-laden art piece that transitions from rain and sadness to a milieu of rebirth as birds and sunshine begin to return to the area. I wonder if the timing is off, however -- this seems like exactly the kind of thing that could have played three or four years ago at Tribeca and been very powerful, but the intervening years drain it of some of its power to inspire emotions through such a simple presentation. Still, its an intriguing little piece that puts one in mind of why the Tribeca film festival was created in the first place.

With increasing frequency, short films are connecting themselves with women's magazines -- at least, the shorts that cater to fashion, boyfriends and beauty are. Glamour Magazine has been in the game for a bit, grabbing big-name women like Jennifer Aniston and Robin Wright Penn for their Reel Moments series. While it might seem strange at first, it makes sense. Women's magazines love media bites and celebrities, and short films deliver both. In September, Erik Davis brought word that Elle was stepping on the bandwagon with Julia Stiles, who directed a short called Raving.

Now Elle has released a trailer for the short, which will premiere on the Sundance Channel on May 8, at 8:30 PM. Raving is the story of a girl (Zooey Deschanel) who is desperate and searching for money in NYC, and the lonely older man (Bill Irwin) who hires her to clean his home. The man is a widower, and in a bit of poor judgment the girl puts on a dress that belonged to his wife. Instead of getting angry, the man seems to use her to relive the past. This changes the girl's life, because, as Elle's byline for the film states: "Sometimes a dress can change your life." It looks like it is supposed to be a feel-good sort of film, but I don't see how that premise can be anything but creepy. However, it's got Zooey, and she excels at bringing extra quirk and depth to what could be superficial or run-of-the-mill.

It's not often that Variety reports on the production of a short film, but since we're talking Julia Stiles* here, I suppose that means it's important. According to the trade pub, Stiles will write and direct a short called Raving, based on a story featured in Elle magazine's Personal Style issue, due out in October.

The actual story (titled The Dress That Changed My Life) focuses on "the connection between a young woman and a lonely, disassociated older man after a chance encounter on a New York street corner." I assume this young woman will be wearing a special dress that, subsequently, winds up changing her life. Stiles was able to nab Zooey Deschanel and Bill Irwin to play the lead characters in the pic, which is sponsored by Elle and will be produced by Plum Pictures. Currently, there's no word on where we'll be able to catch the short, though I expect Elle will make it available on their website once everything is all wrapped up in a neat little bow.

*Am I the only one who thinks Julia Stiles and Erika Christensen are long-lost sisters?