The Spy in the Sandwich

Monday, August 03, 2020

10:00 AM | The Film Meme No. 100

[100th of 100]. Every writer -- budding, withered, or inured -- should make a point to watch at least once a year this film adaptation by Curtis Hanson of Michael Chabon's scabrous and comic novel about writers and the literary life. It was curiously under-appreciated in its release in 2000, and remains an undiscovered gem today. But for those who know by heart the tosses and turns of this wonderful comedy-drama, it remains a pleasure undiluted by the years. I do watch it every year, and the performances -- by a glittering cast that includes Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Richard Thomas, Richard Knox, and Jane Adams -- remain scintillating blends between characters and the personas of the actors embodying them; the dialogue remains sharp; and the storytelling remains taut, structured so beautifully, I think of it all as a perfectly concocted narrative. It goes without saying that this is the film I force my Creative Writing students to watch at the top of the term, in an attempt not just give an illustration of a story told exceedingly well, but also to give them an idea of the larger writing world out there, both in its rose-tinted romantic view of itself, and the warts that show when you dig deeper. The story starts -- but of course -- in a fiction workshop, Douglas' Professor Grady Tripp, teacher and author of one acclaimed novel, handling the discussion of another bleak story written by a student named James Leer, a literary of wunderkind whose capacity for invention, we learn later on, goes quite well beyond the typewritten stories he has in his backpack. And of course his story is blood to the rest of the savage wolves in the classroom, except for his classmate Hannah Green [Holmes in one of her pre-Tom Cruise triumphs] who understands not just the story, but also seemingly the emotionally-cloistered writer behind it. And then the bell rings, and Grady reminds his students to be on hand for the weekend: the university is hosting its annual literary fair, and for three days, it will be a hive of all sorts of literary bees -- acclaimed authors, bestselling authors, wannabe authors, literary editors on the make and in decline, scholars, agents, literature teachers, readers of all stripes. With that we get the structure in terms of time and place, and in terms of the characters inhabiting them. I've already written so much about the story and I've barely begun scratching the surface of the plot. Suffice it to say that involves Prof. Grady's wife who has just left him, his affair with his university provost who also happens to be married to his department chair, an unwieldy second novel, a pair of red boots, a dress worn by Marilyn Monroe, a beautiful transsexual, a desperate editor, a gun, a dead blind dog, a student who would rather not go home to his parents, a bunch of spirited lies, a pompous writer of bestselling books given to pompous speeches about the writing process, a pack of marijuana, a regular dizzying spell, a guy named Vernon who does not know people call him Vernon, a dilapidated car, and endless Pittsburgh snow. It's weird to lay them all out like that because they seem so disparate, so disconnected from each other; but they are all of a piece, details that make up a seamless symphony of a story about a desperate writer/teacher who finds redemption in letting go and letting love in. That's being too reductive of the story of course, but there is no way to explain its nuances in a paragraph that does not threaten to become a full article. I'd rather you see the film itself and discover its magnificences. And like I said, it's a good primer on storytelling, and storytellers, and if you are of that sort, the in-jokes and the insights will amuse you no end. What's the film?

This is my last post in this series. One hundred posts over one hundred days! It has been a worthwhile exercise. Thanks to those who eagerly awaited my daily cinematic musings! And thanks to Joops Miranda who is responsible for all these.

For the introduction to this meme, read here.

Labels: film, writers, writing