Minnie Driver

  • Owning Mahowny (2003)

    Owning Mahowny (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2021) I’m not always fond of Canadian Content (CanCon) restrictions on Canadian Cable TV channels requiring them to show a certain percentage of Canadian material if they want to keep their broadcast licenses. It certainly makes for a convenient scapegoat whenever a terrible made-in-Canada movie gets in regular rotation for a while. Of course, the pleasant flip-side of this is that CanCon often helps in keeping good but obscure Canadian movies in play long after they would have otherwise been forgotten. Seeing Owning Mahowny pop up regularly on schedules eighteen years after its release, for instance, is one of those cases where CanCon isn’t so bad. Based on a true piece of Canadiana, it’s the story of a bank vice-president who figures out a way to tap into his company’s funds in order to cover his gambling debts, only to see this “temporary” charade deepen, as he’s unable to cover his losses. Along the way, it clearly becomes a case study in a gambling addiction, as the protagonist goes bigger and bigger (becoming a “whale” for competing casinos) without quite getting any satisfaction out of it. Philip Seymour Hoffman is typically excellent in the lead role, consistently underplaying things in a way that becomes a statement by itself. Minnie Driver doesn’t get much to do as “the girlfriend” (aka the voice of reason), although seeing her in dirty-blonde straight hair with bangs is interesting in itself. John Hurt is delightful as a very amused casino manager trying to learn more about the player with deep pockets showing up in his establishment. Still, this is Hoffman’s show, and he shines brighter than the muddy 1980s-style cinematography attempting a period look. Fortunately, the film is progressively compelling: Hoffman’s character is clearly stuck in a spiral of lies and deception and there’s a perverse pleasure in seeing how far he’ll go in trying to cover up his growing debts. Among Owning Mahowny’s most interesting choices is a sequence that, in any other gambling film, would be about the flash and fun of being treated like a high-roller. Here, however, the entire thing feels like a pain for the protagonist, who would rather go on with the business of playing than being lavished with attention. Some decent screenwriting gives weight to even the minor characters and structural scenes — it makes for an absorbing film even when it doesn’t necessarily start out like one. Owning Mahowny is definitely worth a look if you’re even slightly interested by gambling movies, white-collar crime thrillers or character studies. So: score one more for CanCon victories in further exposing a home-made success.

  • Beyond the Lights (2014)

    Beyond the Lights (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV January 2021) Beyond the Lights isn’t unique in taking us backstage of a music superstar’s public image (heck, it’s not even the only such film I watched today with an unintentional double bill with The High Note), but it can depend on decent execution and a good ensemble cast to distinguish itself. In between Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Minnie Driver, Nate Parker and Danny Glover, there are plenty of interesting actors here. As a romantic comedy, Beyond the Lights starts with unpleasant sequences, as a prologue depicting parental abuse is followed by a suicide attempt by the film’s grown-up protagonist. Fortunately, a handsome policeman (Parker) is there to prevent the superstar signer (Mbatha-Raw) from falling to her death, and what follows is a romance mixed with attempts from the singer to extricate herself from an artificial persona facilitated by her domineering mother (Driver, in a surprisingly unlikable turn). Straightforward direction by Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn’t get in the way of her own script. I have long been interested in Mbatha-Raw, but this early film is a far better showcase for her talents than many of her later performances: the role is complex, spans various emotional states and even if it’s not clear whether she performed her vocals, it takes presence to credibly play a musical superstar. I have a few qualms about the male protagonist’s character, but those things have to be put in perspective considering that it’s female-centric romantic comedy. Still, I had a decent time—despite overused plot devices (is there a single movie singer who doesn’t dream of singing their own heartfelt material?), Beyond the Lights is an entertaining film that, by now, almost qualifies as an overlooked one.

  • Sleepers (1996)

    Sleepers (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) The mid-nineties were a surprisingly good time for solid thrillers, and Sleepers works not because of its atypical revenge plot or unobtrusive direction but largely because it managed to bring together an impressive group of actors. In-between Kevin Bacon, Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and the always-compelling Minnie Driver, it’s a nice mixture of generations and styles. It helps that the script is built solidly around an unusual conceit, with an ambitious lawyer doing his best to lose a case but make sure it’s widely publicized to take revenge upon childhood enemies. A blend of courtroom thriller and working-class drama, Sleepers may or may not be based on a true story, but it works well as fiction. Despite revolving around difficult subjects such as child abuse, Sleepers manages to be slightly comforting in how it ensures a victory of sorts for its characters, present a solid underdog story in an accessible fashion, and largely depends on familiar actors doing what they do best. Director Barry Levinson mostly stays out of the way of his actors, and the result is curiously easy to watch despite harsh sequences.

  • Conviction (2010)

    Conviction (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, June 2011) There’s something almost earnestly old-fashioned about Conviction, a film that has few scruples about belonging to the “inspiring story based on true events” category.  Here, a woman puts herself through law school for the express purpose of freeing her wrongfully accused brother.  It ends pretty much like you’d think.  Still, Conviction is more polished than you’d expect: the setup is handled efficiently, and the early structure of the film seamlessly meshes two levels of flashbacks to explain how the characters got where they are.  This is the kind of film that showcases actors, and Hilary Swank is very good in the lead role, with a strikingly transformed Sam Rockwell as her wrongfully accused brother.  I almost always, for some reason, enjoy seeing Minnie Driver on-screen, and she gets a lot of screen time as a sidekick to the protagonist’s legal investigation.  For a film of its genre, it’s curiously restrained until the very end, and clever about how it takes us from one detail of the case to the next.  It doesn’t necessarily spring Conviction up and away from typical TV-movie-of-the-week fare (it will live best on DVD than it did in theaters), but it does pretend to be a dramatic awards contender, and it’s not misplaced in those ambitions.  It all piles up to amount to a satisfying film, but not an overly memorable one.

  • Barney’s Version (2010)

    Barney’s Version (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, January 2011) As much as I like supporting Canadian Content (and there’s nothing more CanCon than an adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s last novel, filmed and set in Montréal), there’s something just subtly off about Barney’s Version.  It’s an accumulation of small annoyances that damage the film, from a scatter-shot episodic narrative to flat performances to overly sentimental moments.  I’ll be the first to note that presenting forty years of a man’s life on-screen isn’t the simplest screenwriting challenge: As an adaptation of a dense and thick novel, you can perceptibly feel the loose threads running over everywhere and be frustrated at the amount of extra detail missing from the screen.  That’ll explain the way the film doesn’t quite seem to hang together.  While Barney’s Version revolves around Paul Giamatti’s exceptional lead performance and Dustin Hoffman’s unrecognizable turn as his father, actors surrounding them are far less credible.  Most of the female characters seem played either without subtlety (I once thought I could watch Minnie Driver all day, but her one-note shrill performance tested that assumption) or without affect (Rosamund Pike, sedated throughout): even assuming that the film is from Barney’s subjective perspective isn’t enough to excuse it.  Humorous in the details and tragic in the whole, Barney’s Version runs off in all kinds of directions, and it’s not in its nature to finish neatly with a big finale.  It’s best, then, to appreciate its small quirky moments, its Montréal atmosphere and the occasional Denys Arcand cameo.  It is, as is the case with so many middle-of-the-road Canadian dramas, amiable but unremarkable.  Barney’s Version is good enough to make Canadian audiences feel better about seeing it, but it’s not worth much commentary otherwise.