George Roy Hill

  • Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2022) If Slaughterhouse-Five is a disappointment, much of it has to do with how it reaches for more than it can deliver on at least two levels. First, in adapting the classic Kurt Vonnegut novel, it measures itself up against impossible odds: Vonnegut’s narrative approach is unique and maybe impossible to adapt faithfully to the screen. I last read the novel decades ago and it left such a strong impression that I can still quote moments of it—and didn’t find much of that in the film. But even if everyone agreed not to criticize the adaptation for not having the flavour of the original text, there’s still another insurmountable obstacle in the story’s immensely ambitious scope, spanning decades in the protagonist’s life: the firebombing of Dresden, a brush with near-incomprehensible aliens and eventually becoming unstuck in time. Little of this was possible to credibly portray on-screen with middle-budget early-1970s filmmaking, so it’s not a surprise if the result feels so disappointing. Vonnegut reportedly liked the result—but then again, he was a quintessential gentleman. Following in his footsteps, let’s be indulgent and at least acknowledge that Slaughterhouse Five remains interesting to watch even if it can’t grasp what it reaches for: The unstuck-in-time device is ideally suited for editing tricks (even if it doesn’t fully exploit the possibilities there) and the film does attain a darkly comic detachment about itself that does honour Vonnegut himself. I’m not even sure if it fully achieves the goals if set for itself—there’s a very long car mayhem sequence that had me thinking, “I hope this insufferable character dies” before exactly that happens, except that the film thinks it’s a tragedy. But weirdness is what Slaughterhouse Five has to offer, and then-veteran director George Roy Hill does his best in accomplishing a project fraught with pitfalls. As much as I don’t like the idea of remakes, I’m really not opposed to seeing someone take Slaughterhouse Five out for another spin, with modern innovations (SFX and audience literacy) that have made a mockery of what was formerly called “impossible to adapt.”  So it goes.

  • A Little Romance (1979)

    A Little Romance (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) There is so much unadulterated syrupy-sweet sentiment in A Little Romance that while watching the film I had the time to develop obesity, cavities and diabetes. Consciously twee, it’s a romance featuring an American 13-year-old (Diane Lane, in her film debut) and a French 13-year-old (Thelonious Bernard), under the watchful eye of an older man (late-career Laurence Olivier). The backdrop is Paris, and then Venice, but if the leads are teenagers, the audience for the film is clearly meant to be adult, as the themes have more to do with the purity of an ideal teenage romance than anything else. Director George Roy Hill keeps things so light and unlikely that the film is best seen as a fantasy of sorts. A Little Romance probably works well with its intended audience in their most receptive mood, but if you happen to fall outside that segment… well, the sugar is overwhelming.

  • The Sting (1973)

    The Sting (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2018) If The Sting doesn’t play quite as well today as it did back in 1973, it’s largely its own fault—it was so influential that, having birthed an entire sub-genre of con movies, it finds itself imitated to the point of irrelevancy. This is not to say that the film isn’t worth a look—in between Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the main roles (Redford being a touch too old, but who cares), some playful directing by George Roy Hill, and a rather charming recreation of mid-thirties Chicago, The Sting was and remains a top-notch crowd-pleaser. Where it fails is in keeping a sense of surprise. Even without having seen the film before, the ending is utterly predictable … not because it’s badly written (in fact, it was quite surprising to audiences at the time), but because the basic tenets of the entire ending have been endlessly duplicated by other lesser conman movies since then. Of course, the conman is in perfect control of the plot. Of course, the con is so big as to envelop even the structures in which the con operates. Of course, you have to confuse and whisk away the victim without them even suspecting the truth. Of course, even the authorities aren’t. Surprise: zero. But… Pleasure: quite high. Mixing memorable ragtime music, fancy scene transitions and even fancier title cards, The Sting is made for fun. It’s early enough in the post-Hays code to be cheerfully amoral, but not quite dedicated to the darkness that engulfed Hollywood cinema in the early seventies.