Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Staff Critic Friday,
February 18, 2000
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``Hanging Up'' is emotive without being emotional and
clever without being funny. It's too phony to be
anything truly heartfelt, so it exists in a limbo of
pointlessness. It's what Hollywood comes up with when
it contrives to imitate sincerity.
The picture, which opens today, is written by Delia
and Nora Ephron, based on Delia Ephron's novel. It's
about three sisters and their dying father, but it's
also inadvertently about the lifestyles of the rich
and famous.
The father, a former screenwriter for John Wayne, is
played by Walter Matthau. The older sister, played by
Diane Keaton (who also directed), edits and publishes
her own women's magazine. The youngest sister (Lisa
Kudrow) is a famous soap opera actress.
That leaves Eve, the middle sister played by Meg Ryan.
Eve isn't famous, but she's pretty well off. She talks
on her cell phone while driving a huge sport utility
vehicle and, according to one bit, keeps getting into
car accidents. It takes a naive faith to make a
sympathetic character out of a cell-phone wielding,
SUV-driving menace.
Then again, Ryan could make Imelda Marcos into a
sympathetic character. She'd just have to wrinkle her
nose and say, ``I love shoooes!'' As Eve, Ryan lets us
understand that she is a road menace because she is
too busy taking care of her family. Her sisters don't
want to be bothered, so she's the one who has to check
her disoriented father into the hospital and visit him
every day.
As Dad, Matthau does what he has done for the past 10
years. He plays a grumpy old man who occasionally
surprises people -- though, at this point, not the
audience -- with lewd remarks and behavior. He talks
about John Wayne's private parts, tries to fondle a
nurse and describes a woman as ``a good lay.'' This is
supposed to be endearing.
That it's not endearing is a problem. The movie
revolves around the intensity of the bond between Eve
and her father, but the script gives us little sense
of who this man is and why we should like him. The
father scenes should have been the heart of the
picture. But they're written as half-hearted gestures
and are without impact.
Living up to its title, ``Hanging Up'' hits us with
endless volleys of scenes showing Eve shouting into
her cell phone. Keaton directs these scenes at a
screwball pace, which would seem to be the right
strategy, but it backfires. The bombardment becomes
irritating, a lot of sound and fury in the service of
nothing.
Ryan is a good emotional actress, and she has the
film's best moments. In one scene, Dad viciously
insults Eve, and though she fights back, Ryan leaves
the audience with no doubt that she is deeply hurt.
Watching it, one can almost feel her devastation
physically. Ryan also builds a nice rapport with
Kudrow, and their sister relationship is believable.
Keaton has less luck directing herself. She has never
mugged more, never until now shown us all the
adorable-winning-smiling- laughing things that she can
do. But considering the script she had to deal with,
her performance had to be the least of her worries.
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