Toni Collette

  • Dinner with Friends (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) There isn’t a whole lot to Dinner with Friends and maybe that’s the point. Adapted from a theatrical play, it features four characters: two couples of friends working their way through the revelation of an affair involving one of them, and the subsequent fallout of the divorce. Our lead couple takes the news hard but in different ways, siding with one person, then not being so sure about it as further revelations emerge. Much of the film, true to its inspiration, takes the form of lengthy dialogue scenes, with a crucial time-skip in the middle. In the hands of versatile director Norman Jewison, it’s all very raw, (relatively) low-stakes and emotional: it’s the kind of film that actors love because it lets them demonstrate their dramatic chops, and indeed we have Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette as the lead quartet, and all four of them do decently well. While Dinner with Friends is not exactly a great film (it was made for HBO, and is largely forgotten today except for fans of the creative leads), it’s not unpleasant to watch despite the sometimes-difficult subject matter, and benefits a great deal from the acting talents of its leads.

  • Emma (1996)

    Emma (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2019) Travel back to an earlier, simpler time with Emma—no, not 19th-century England (although yes), but rather the mid-1990s when Austen adaptations were the rage, and Gwyneth Paltrow was a rising star rather than a woo-woo businesswoman. You can’t say that writer-director Douglas McGrath hopped on the Austen bandwagon when he helped build that bandwagon—and at this point, we’re now in the second generation of Austen remakes and so able to call the 1996 a source of inspiration for newer takes. Suffice to say that this one gets most things right—it sticks close to the material, benefits from a lavish costume budget, keeps things charming, and plays it straight. Re-interpretations would come in the same year (as Clueless) and in further films more eager to differentiate themselves. But if you’re looking for a straight-ahead take that remains faithful to the original novel, you can certainly do worse: Paltrow is quite likable, actors such as Ewan McGregor, Toni Collette and Alan Cumming all pop up in supporting roles, and McGrath puts everything together in competent fashion. There’s not a whole lot more to say about Emma, but sometimes that’s the charm of it.