Genevieve Bujold

  • Obsession (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2022) As I make my way through writer-director Brian de Palma’s lower-tier filmography, one of the questions I get to put to rest is “When does de Palma’s classic period begin?” It’s not as clear as when it ends (I’ll propose Carlito’s Way in 1993, with 1996’s Mission: Impossible being the big-budget victory lap) – While most will clearly identify Carrie (1976) as the film that kick-started de Palma’s notoriety, there are other answers if you’re looking for the film that first showed his dealing with his favourite themes with an acceptable degree of technical polish. You can make a case for Sisters (1972), but I think that you’re on more solid ground with 1976’s Obsession, which feels technically slicker while still allowing de Palma to explore his favourite themes. Much of the film, after all, is a thriller about two women looking like each other, with a few big plot twists in the third act and a disquieting feeling. In this case, we get Cliff Robertson playing a real estate developer who’s haunted by the violent death of his wife and daughter decades earlier, and who suddenly encounters a woman (Geneviève Bujold) who looks eerily like his late wife. There’s a lot more to it, but let’s not spoil the best parts — including John Lithgow in one of his earliest screen roles, complete with southern accent. (Don’t look at the poster too closely, though, because — whoa, spoiler when you know what to look for!)  Even those foolish de Palma detractors won’t be able to deny that the film is (as they often accused) a big Hitchcock homage by riffing from Vertigo, and its production included a protracted argument with both screenwriter and studio about the content of the film. Classic de Palma right there – and for modern viewers, that means that the film is a lot of fun to watch and read about – even if you know about the big twist. The flashy directing is there as well, with some pre-digital effects (such as switching characters while a travelling camera is in darkness between bright windows) showcasing his audacity. It does feel like part of a continuum that would lead to Dressed to Kill, Body Double and Raising Cain (among others) and it’s often a joy to watch even when it delves into dark themes and uncomfortable content “presented as a fantasy.”  Obsession is not lower-tier de Palma – it easily makes its way to the mid-tier, and remains an essential part of his filmography.

  • Earthquake (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2022) In the pantheon of 1970s disaster movies, Earthquake is certainly not the first (Airport), not the best (The Towering Inferno), not the funniest (Airplane!) and it’s not the most ridiculous (The Swarm), but there’s a good case to be made for it to be the most disaster-esque. It understands the very specific form of the subgenre better than most – the high-concept, almost inevitable premise (an earthquake ravaging Los Angeles) acts as the main event, but there are plenty of portentous mini-crises and subsequent aftershocks to keep things hopping throughout the entire film. The usual ensemble cast of such films, bringing together new actors with Classic Hollywood stars, is also top-notch: In between Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner on one end, and George Kennedy and Richard Roundtree in the middle, and Genevieve Bujold and Victoria Principal toward the younger end, we get as much opportunity for star-spotting as an L.A. bus tour – including Walter Matthau in a very funny uncredited drunk role: yes, it’s him! The special effects keep going between credible and amateurish, with a specific mention of a cartoonish blood splash punctuating an elevator crash. The entire plot is handled with enough over-the-top craziness that it carries the film even when the rest of it doesn’t make sense. The vignette-oriented ensemble approach of the plot means that the film was put together in bits and pieces with plenty of reshoots and last-minute cuts. Some of the material apparently resurfaced in a longer, more complete TV version but the DVD edit doesn’t have that luxury: the film brings characters in and out of the plot without bothering to give everyone a satisfying climactic resolution – and if you think the biggest names are going to be at the happy ending, then you’ll feel Earthquake running out of steam moments before crossing the finish line. The rather disappointing ending doesn’t quite erase the discomfort of one of the main plotlines – with Heston’s character clearly telegraphing his intention to leave his age-appropriate wife for another woman twenty years his junior. The ending tries to be moral about this but only manages to feel cheap, which is at odds with the rest of this no-expense-barred extravaganza. Director Mark Robson has a multi-ring circus of destruction to manage but the scattered result would have escaped all but the best directors. What we’re left with is still a highly watchable (although increasingly unconvincing) disaster film and a time capsule of mid-1970s Los Angeles, often more promising than successful.

  • Murder by Decree (1979)

    Murder by Decree (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) The idea of pairing Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper has a long history—it’s a natural matchup from a chronological perspective, and an irresistible one from a dramatic viewpoint. Murder by Decree is far from being the first work of fiction to explore the pairing (even in limiting ourselves to movies, A Study in Terror did it a decade earlier), but you don’t have to be the first to be influential—It was decently successful at the box office and so I wonder how many of the later works of fiction combining the two have been influenced by this one. The plot is very much focused on the royal conspiracy angle, almost de rigueur as a way to make the stakes as high as they could possibly go in London. Depending on how you feel about whether Jack the Ripper story should adhere to the historical record, this will either be interesting or far-fetched. Still, the point of Murder by Decree isn’t as much the story as the concept, plus the rather engrossing atmosphere. Fully playing with the idea of 1800s London being a fog-shrouded city and spending a good chunk of money on period detail, director Bob Clark makes Murder by Decree notable for its iconography. There’s also a nice amount of acting talent involved: Christopher Plummer and none other than James Mason (who looks much older but sounds the same) star as, respectively, Holmes and Watson, with Donald Sutherland and Genevieve Bujold in supporting roles. It all wraps up in a package slightly too long (especially in the ending stretch, drunk on its own conspiracy fantasies) but remains enjoyable despite the gory subject matter.

  • Last Night (1998)

    Last Night (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) I can name at least three “the end of the world is coming and here is how the characters react” movies in recent memory—Melancholia, These Final Hours and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World—but Last Night predates all of them, and still offers its own unique take on the premise. Shot and set in debris-strewn Toronto streets, writer-director Don McKellar’s film feels like an exceptionally Canadian take on cozy catastrophes: the rioting and panic having taken place earlier and offstage (aside from a few brief moments of crowd craziness midway through the film), we’re left with characters reacting with dignity and black humour to the impending apocalypse as the clock counts down to the end. Some indulge in hedonism, checking off their bucket lists, while others retire home to pray. Meanwhile, our lead couple (McKellar and a captivating Sandra Oh) improbably connects despite very different plans. Add TTC streetcars, some French-Canadian dialogue with Geneviève Bujold, the eye-catching Sarah Polley and a rare (but dignified) acting performance by director David Cronenberg and you’ve got one of the most Canadian of all 1990s Canadian movies. I enjoyed Last Night far more than I thought I would, but then again, I have a soft spot for that exact premise, and it’s substantially funnier than I expected. The only thing that marred my experience is that Canadian Cable TV channel Encore must have dredged their copy of the film from their old TMN/Moviepix archives because the transfer here is markedly low-resolution with faded colours and standard aspect ratio—not a good way to present a good film.

  • Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

    Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2019) There are Oscar-nominated movies that age so poorly that it’s a wonder why they were ever nominated, and then there are those where it’s still obvious, decades later, why they were. Anne of the Thousand Days belongs to the second category, give how lavishly it portrays one of the high points of any High School history curriculum. Here we are, once again, in King Henry VIII’s court as he throws a hissy fit about his right to divorce whoever he wants. This being said, Richard Burton ably plays him, and he gets to face off with a very young and fiery Genevieve Bujold as the titular Anne (Elizabeth I’s mom, if you’re keeping track). It’s not just a costume drama: it’s one of the ultimate examples of the form. The colours and cinematography still impress fifty years later, with more camera movements than we could expect from a film of that period. Alas, my interest for such subject matter is near an all-time low (I blame High School), and I found myself more bored than intrigued by the result even if I can recognize that it’s a superior example of such. Even I ended up appreciating some of the touches of high drama, humour or romance in the middle of a very well-known story. It liked it quite a bit better than A Man for All Seasons, for instance. But at least I can now take it out of my list of Oscar nominees I still hadn’t seen.

  • Dead Ringers (1988)

    Dead Ringers (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I’m not sure whether it’s a disappointment or a compliment to say “Wow, that wasn’t as unpleasant as I expected” at the end of writer/director David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. I suppose that it depends on what you think of Cronenberg’s movies and his reputation as a master of body horror. What seems like faint praise can be interpreted as disappointment if you hold the view that Cronenberg movies should be as extreme as possible, then go back to praise considering that Cronenberg’s reputation is such that he creates a sense of dread even before we start watching the movie, preparing our imaginations to all sorts of terrors yet to be experienced and perhaps more effective than if they had been shown on the screen. Of course, “not as unpleasant as I expected” is a relative term and jaded Cronenberg viewers will interpret it differently than more mainstream audiences—Dead Ringers remains a movie with sexual deception, torture-like gynecological tools (ick!), drug abuse, fatally codependent relationships, evisceration and a body count. “Not as unpleasant as I expected” may simply mean that we’ve been spared horrors such as a fifteen-minute one-shot of the film’s most sordid business. Everyone’s mileage will vary. Jeremy Irons stars as twins working as gynecologists and is suitably creepy in his dual roles, while Geneviève Bujold plays the unusual client that divides them. Dead Ringers’ sense of unease is displayed early on and never dispels, although it does prepare us for horrors more extreme than what we actually see. (For once, the female character escapes unscathed—and may even unwittingly deliver the killing blow.) It may not be as crazily imaginative as Cronenberg’s most unhinged movies such as Scanners and Videodrome, but it’s slicker, better controlled and probably a bit cleverer in the way it plays with unease rather than outright disgust. This being said, I suspect that Dead Ringers is more effective for viewers who think they know what to expect than relative newcomers to Cronenberg, and that male viewers will have more muted reactions than female ones.

  • Coma (1978)

    Coma (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Michael Crichton became a contrarian cuckoo in his last few years, but even that sad brain-eating epilogue shouldn’t distract from an amazing career in which he wrote best-sellers, created hit TV shows, coded computer games, won a Technical Achievement Academy Award (!) for budgeting and scheduling innovations (!!) and, oh, directed half a dozen big-budget movies. Movies like Coma, showing his knack for technical medical drama coupled with solid storytelling abilities. While it’s not required to praise Coma beyond its own goals as a straightforward thriller, Crichton’s film does manage to be effective. Based on nothing less than one of Robin Cook’s early novels, it’s a blend of medical drama, high-tech investigation, conspiracy thriller and woman-in-distress drama. Genevieve Bujold stars as a doctor who becomes suspicious of mysterious coma cases at her hospital, with some good supporting performances by Michael Douglas and Rip Torn. (Watch for Ed Harris in his first film role as a technician.) While the film can’t escape a certain seventies stodginess, it’s this very same atmosphere that makes the film more interesting than expected today—Coma has emerged from the last thirty years as a period piece rather than a dated one, and it’s seeing things like Douglas in a full beard that makes the film rather entertaining to watch. Even the high-tech gloss of the film, at times ridiculous, is now rather charming. Not an essential film, but not an uninteresting one either.