Splendor

Splendor is a much different film than you'd expect from writer/director Greg Arakki's previous work. It stays away from the stylistic and linguistic tendencies that plagued both "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere". Visually, the film is also much more conventional, adding to a slightly strange, but by no means bizarre plot line. It's the story of Veronica, featuring a fine performance by Kathleen Robertson, who has fallen in love with two different men. She somehow manages to keep them apart, and then eventually, to get them to like each other. Together they form a triple, as opposed to a couple. It seems a bit of a stretch to assume that this complex relationship would work, that the two would be willing to share her as a girlfriend, and that they would all be able to live together in seeming harmony. The problem, is that the two different men soon become crude characterizations, rather than flesh and blood people that we could care about. They seem rather pathetic at times, and things get complicated when yet another man enters Veronica's life, offering stability and desiring a relationship with her. Despite the obvious nods to Three's Company, and the sometimes funny scenes that Arakki conjures up, the film is simply not exciting enough to hold our interest in these characters, the writing is not bold enough to grab out attention, and the film isn't nearly as erotic as its set up would suggest. All in all, it's an okay film from a director I usually don't like all that much, but it's definitely not what you're expecting from an Arakki film (which doesn't necessarily mean that it's any better for its difference)

Former kinetic Doom Generation provocateur Araki tries to become a modern Douglas Sirk with this largely unexciting, faintly comic romance about a woman who loves two men at once and finds three-way domestic bliss, until the guys turn into "Beavis and Butthead", and she gets pregnant. Like Sirk's super-excessive 50's melodramas, the film attempts to turn basically banal, formulaic material into a swooning, sensual spectacle, and some scenes do have a striking design muscularity (the bar where a video triptych forms the backdrop to their conversation; Robertson's apartment, with the huge clock sometimes seeming suspended Dali-like). More often though, the enterprise seems merely shallow, with the movie flashing up blocks of color as if hoping that the mere evocation of a rainbow might somehow spawn a pot of gold. Araki pushes his actors into a banality that sometimes verges on sheer babyishness (Keeslar is particularly badly handled), and the movie - given its somewhat raunchy theme - displays an odd decorousness and modesty, being weirdly coy for example about the gay implications of the arrangement. The Toronto Film Festival guide cites Truffaut and Sturges as influences rather than Sirk - either way, Araki doesn't seem to be himself here.

Girl meets boy, girl sleeps with boy...then girl meets other boy, girl wants other boy as well. But instead of cheating on both of them (a la "Two Girls and a Guy"), she takes the responsible approach and tells them both, letting them decide whether they can deal with sharing her. Those of us who practice polyamory (aka "responsible nonmonogamy") will be thrilled to see a movie that treats a threesome as a viable relationship structure. And it's a fine film as well - nice lighting, some creative filming, reasonably well-acted.

This film won't win any awards for heavy-duty messages or ironic commentary on the state of male-female relationships in the 90's. However, it will convince you that a menage a trois is not only undeviant, sometimes it's positively the only way to fly! The three leads are all cute as hell, and do a wonderful job with the quirky script. This reminds me of a French movie with a similar plot, Cafe Au Lait, translated into the demi monde of L.A. wannabees on the fringes of the entertainment industry. Worth seeing for the eye candy alone.

Araki's most overtly heterosexual film, and hence painfully mainstream, is undeniably a dissapointment for fans of his previous films, particularly the brilliant twosome "Nowhere" and "The Doom Generation". In fact in many ways "Splendour" is like a John Hughes remake of "The Doom Generations" but without the explicit sex and violence, severed heads, castrations and Parker Posey in a bizarre wig - Araki has tossed his nihilism out the window, and come up with a frustratingly conventional romcom. It continues his repeated fascination with the three-way relationship, perhaps for obvious reasons he can only portray a heterosexual relationship with two males present, and his unique visual and editing style is still apparent though toned down. Not a bad film by any means as it is enjoyable and the performances are good, but one can't help but feel underwhelmed following the daft "Graduate"-style ending. Let's hope this is a one-off for Araki.