"ANYWHERE BUT HERE"
In a few short years, she's worked with Al Pacino and Michael Mann ("Heat"), Tim Burton ("Mars Attacks"), George Lucas ("Star Wars - Episode One: The Phantom Menace"), Luc Besson and Gary Oldman ("The Professional"), Woody Allen ("Everybody Says I Love You"), and plenty of other extraordinarily talented people. Also, she got critical acclaim for her Broadway performance of the title character in "The Diary of Anne Frank." It's no wonder that rather than get a new actress, the makers of "Anywhere But Here" had the script rewritten after Natalie Portman turned the role down because she was uncomfortable with the love scene. That and the fact that Susan Sarandon insisted in having Natalie Portman co-star in the movie with her. So the love scene was replaced, and Natalie Portman was in the movie.
I didn't expect to be blown away by the movie. I didn't expect a great movie at all. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy Natalie Portman's performance, and I did. Even though she acted alongside an acting powerhouse like Susan Sarandon, she really held her own. No, she actually did more than that, I think her performance outdid Sarandon's. That's not to say that Susan Sarandon's acting was uncharacteristically bad, because it wasn't. She was great, but Natalie Portman, she's absolutely magnificent. The buzz on this movie is that both Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon will get nominated and compete for the Best Actress Oscar, but I disagree. Natalie Portman will unfairly get nominated for Best Supporting Actress (unfair because it's not a supporting role), and she'll win it. Susan Sarandon may get nominated for Best Actress, but she won't win (she won an Oscar very recently).
Though my review so far would make it seem like otherwise, there ARE other people in the movie. Shawn Hatosy (he was the athlete with the heart o' gold in "The Faculty" and starred recently in "Outside Providence") is good in the movie, and Michael Milhoan (he played "Dante" in a great TV show that NBC prematurely cancelled that was called "Something So Right," and he was the principal of the high school in "She's All That") was very good, as well. Bonnie Bedelia and Hart Bochner, two "Die Hard" alums, are also in the movie. There's an uncredited role by an actress who isn't a big name, but she's a little bigger now than before because of the success of "American Beauty," so now her appearance is an unintentional cameo. I'll be quiet as to who it is.
"Anywhere But Here" was directed by Wayne Wang ("Smoke," "Blue in the Face," and "The Joy Luck Club") and written by Alvin Sargent (a versatile writer who wrote "Ordinary People," "Nuts," "Dominick and Eugene," and the hilarious "What About Bob?"). The script was adapted from the novel by Mona Simpson. Wayne Wang is a very good director, and Alvin Sargent is a good writer, but it's simply not my kinda movie. If some other actress played Natalie Portman's role, no one coulda dragged me to see it.
Though it's not at all the kinda movie I'd see, "Anywhere
But Here" was fairly enjoyable to me. The problem is, I'm not
sure how much of that had to do with the actual movie, and how
much of it was simply because of Natalie Portman.
Wanna bitch to me about my review? Perhaps you wanna let me know
that my reviews are the most accurate in existence (well, they ARE!).
Either way, E-Mail me to gimmie your thoughts.
filmgeek@mindspring.com