Of Mice and Men – Playing with the bunnies

Article first published as Movie Review: Of Mice and Men (1992) – Just Playing With the Bunnies on Blogcritics.

Set during the Depression in California the story follows two young men, George (Gary Sinise) and Lennie (John Malcovich), who are living the rootless migrating life of day labourers. It quickly becomes obvious that Lennie isn’t all the way there, but he is strong as an ox. That is actually part of the problem. We start in medias res with George and Lennie running from a posse, something that is explained later.

The gentle giant Lennie has a soft spot for animals. The only problem is that he loves them a little too much, squeezing the life out of the things he pets. The viewer quickly understands that Lennie really does mean no harm, he just does not understand how strong he really is and he doesn’t seem to be able to learn. George takes care of Lennie as they travel together, but the relationship is not an uncomplicated one. All the tension and apprehension between the two is played beautifully by Sinise and Malkovich.

Lennie is obviously mentally still a child in some ways. The communication between him and George has a reoccurring refrain, something you have the feeling George has said a thousand times. It is mainly a plan for a better life for the two of them, where they will settle down on a little farm with cows and pig and rabbits. The rabbits are particularly important to Lennie who chimes in that he will “tend the rabbits”.

The farm where George and Lennie end up working is peopled with about as many quirky characters as you would expect from any movie based on a Steinbeck novel. There’s the short and even more short-tempered Curley (Casey Siemaszko) and his bombshell of a wife (Sherilyn Fenn), the old farmhand Candy (Ray Walston), Slim (John Terry) who acts as a kind of voice of reason and the old bent and broken Crooks (Joe Morton).

There is a very basic quality to the telling of this particular story. It relies heavily on the actors’ ability to convey much of what is left between the lines, and I personally think it is never entirely fair to compare the movie to the book anyway. Movies are collective efforts where cinematography and characterization are subject to interpretation and some things are elided by necessity. Sinise does a good job directing and starring, something that has always seemed a difficult thing to pull off to me, whereas it carries with it the temptation of letting the movie become a vehicle for one actor only. To my mind there is none of that going on here, even though there is obvious care taken to make sure that the actors are given room to work. It is also beautifully shot.

Coming into this story we already know it can’t end well. It’s just a matter of knowing how bad things will get before we get to the inevitable. Curley’s wife (Sherilyn Fenn) is the siren here, coming into the bunkhouse and getting the workers into trouble in various ways. Curley is possessive and jealous and abusive and there is never any doubt that his wife is unhappy with the situation, lonely and bored and locked into a life she does not really want. She winds up trying to befriend Lennie, and that is where things turn dark and desperate. Lennie just does what he always does, petting the bunnies until they break and it is done without any real malice. He breaks Curley’s wife’s neck without really meaning any harm. George knows that this is the end and there’s nothing he can do for Lennie now, except make sure he does not wind up in a cage.

Tragedy always hits harder when preceded by hope for the future and circumstance outside the lead characters’ control. We know this story well enough that there is no real surprise at the way things will end, but the actors make the journey well worth the time. Malcovich, who we are more used to seeing as a cerebral cool villain, really knocks this one out of the park. And Sinise understates all his reactions so well that it is kind of fascinating to watch. Sherilyn Fenn is drop-dead gorgeous and plays this well enough to elevate something that could have been a bad cartoon cliché.

It’s not the book, but it is far too well executed to be dismissed despite the fact that you probably have your own images and ideas even as you step into the vision Sinise creates with a great and obvious love for the material. In short, well worth watching.

Of Mice and Men (1992) is based on the Steinbeck novel of the same name. Horton Foote has written the screenplay and this version is directed by Gary Sinise, who also stars as George Milton. The rest of the cast consists of John Malkovich (Lennie Small), Sherilyn Fenn (Curley’s wife), Casey Siemaszko (Curley), Ray Walstone (Candy), John Terry (Slim), Richard Riehle (Carlson), Alexis Arquette (Whitt), Joe Morton(Crooks), Noble Willingham (The Boss), Joe D’Angerio (Jack), Tuck Milligan (Mike) and David Steen (Tom).

Mule

Rounders – poker and morality

Rounders (1998) directed by John Dalh stars Matt Damon as Mike McDermott, Edward Norton as Worm, John Turturro as Joey Knish, Famke Janssen (Petra), John Malkovich (Teddy KGB), Martin Landau (Abe Petrovsky), Gretchen Mol (Jo).

This is ostensibly a story about playing cards, but more than that it is a morality play, weirdly enough. It all starts with a huge big loss. Mike sits down to play with Teddy KGB and loses everything he owns in one fell swoop. He decides that he’s done, he’s getting out. That means forsaking his dream of winning the world series of poker. He is studying law at the same time and now he’s reduced to driving a delivery truck on the night shift to get by instead.

Mike is a likeable guy. He’s got a pretty girlfriend, Jo, and a judge who really likes him, Abe Petrovsky, and friends who wish him well. He has a set of principles when it comes to playing cards that imply he can beat pretty much anyone by skill and he thinks he is going to be a lawyer. All that gets thrown out the window when his old friend Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison.

The second Worm walks out the prison gates all bets are off. Worm is a mechanic, which means he cheats any way he can, including dealing from the bottom of the deck. Mike is adamant about not playing anymore, but Worm sucks him back into the game with hardly any effort at all.

See, here’s the thing – Mike actually has it all. He has a pretty girl, good friends, a good career ahead of him, he has a sponsor/mentor and he has a clear path cut out. All of this means he won’t play poker anymore, but that is the price he is going to have to pay. Slowly, but surely, all that gets torn down through the machinations of his best friend Worm, who is basically a manipulative loser at best. Worm has none of those thing and judging from the voiceover he never has had them.

The voiceover (Matt Damon) works seamlessly in this setting. You don’t even question it, which I think is in part because the whole movie has a forties Noir feel to it. The style and the theme is perfect for it, as well as the general feel of the whole movie.

But, here’s the thing – at the end of the movie Mike has lost his girl, his potential career, his best friend and his money. He’s been beaten and mauled. And all this is a win in his book because he has the money to get in at the ground level of the poker world series with a theoretical chance of winning a million dollars. He insists that poker is about skill, not luck. He believes it is what he was “meant to do” and the advice given to him in convoluted form by Judge Abe Petrovsky seems to second that notion.

There are a lot of good things about this movie, like the stylishness of it, which is economical and spare, and the cast, which is solid and stellar. Norton is excellent as the weasel Worm and Malkovich goes bananas with the Russian accent. Landau plays the old hand like the old hand he is and Turturro is so calm and laid back that you want to poke him with a cattle prod just to see him twitch. Matt Damon is very strong as the all American guy with a huge brain. There are no interesting female characters in this, neither the overly sexualised Petra (Famke Jenssen) or the bland Jo (Gretchen Mol) make any kind of difference.

It has faults to mar its strong points too. Worm is the catalyst for Mike when it comes to getting him back in the game, but Worm’s own storyline has a very unsatisfactory resolution, which is to say no resolution at all. And Mike sort of rides off into the sunset, which is fine and in keeping with the narrative, but it seems to say that no matter how bright your future might seem you still have to follow your … well, I don’t think “heart” is the right word.

This guy, Mike, chooses a life of instability and loneliness and may very well end up like one of those pathetic losers that populate a movie like Ironweed or Barfly, and still manages to make it sound like the perfect happy ending. So, it’s a murky morals movie. I’m starting to feel that should be a genre all it’s own.

Mule