Piccadilly Jim

I really wanted to enjoy this film as I am a fan of many of the actors involved. Unfortunately, the story didn't work for me. I have given this 7 stars because of the actors.

Actors tend to place their trust in directors, even old stalwarts such as Mr Palmer, Ms Blethyn and Mr Wilkinson. Once the point has been missed by the producers/director, although in this case I don't think the point was ever sighted, the production must run its collision course with disaster, and not even such fine actors as were employed to give it life, could save Piccadilly Jim .

PG Wodehouse was a successful writer who knew the value of the suspension of disbelief, and was able to deliver the theatrical creation of a world which, although highly unlikely, with a cleverly constructed set of plausibilities, would, and did, pass as the truth.

Theatre has many natural enemies. Because it is not the truth, but the appearance of truth, theatre has many tricks and falsehoods in its infrastructure, and these are all susceptible to betrayal in drama, but in comedy they are especially vulnerable. The absolute death sentence on comedy, is to "mug" (pull faces) to attempt to be funny, or to overstate a quirk or characteristic.

In Piccadilly Jim, the director breaks all the rules of good comedy by allowing, not only "mugging," and (keep it in) play funny work, but a whole swatch of clashes to occur. Modern dress, modern language, caricature rather than character, a mysterious failure at irregular intervals to use film language, and the erratic use of tempo, which often stifles its own dialogue.

Many a great opera singer has come unstuck via the technicalities of a so called simple folk song. Perhaps this film came likewise unstuck, by its creators missing the hidden vortex within the supposed simplicity of the original story.

I have seen this twice, but I had not realised that it was a PG Wodehouse story, which would perhaps have made it bizarre. However, in my ignorance, I loved the clashing of modern music and wicked thievery of modern images into the 1930s. Loved the cast - I had not seen either of the two romantic leads before, but the supporting cast was a sea of faces well-known and well-loved. Perhaps it went on a teensy bit, but I thought it was well done, a thoroughly enjoyable whizz of a movie. It is entertainment you know, not a contender for a Nobel Peace Prize. Wodehouse was always meant to be fun, and this certainly fits the bill. Bouquets to the household staff for their instant sterilisation of the mansion in the opening scenes. Wonderful, wonderful Geoffrey Palmer, Brenda Blethyn and Tom Wilkinson .. indeed a good couple of hours all told.

This is the fourth filmed version of P. G. Wodehouse's comic novel of the same name. It was filmed in 1919 (directed by Wesley Ruggles, younger brother of the actor Charlie Ruggles) and in 1936 (directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Robert Montgomery), both times under its correct title. It was next filmed under the title THE GIRL ON THE BOAT (1961), directed by Henry Kaplan, and featuring the famous comedian Norman Wisdom as well as Millicent Martin, Richard Briers, and others of note. And then for this production of 2005, they went back to the original title again. 'Piccadilly Jim' is a wild young man who is the main character, and should be played by somebody truly extraordinary. Unfortunately, here he is played by a somewhat colourless actor who is about as interesting as a crushed toadstool, Sam Rockwell. However, the other performers do their best to 'act around him' and cover up the vacuum of his performance with their own energetic, and often hysterical performances. Tom Wilkinson is a steadying factor, good dependable Tom who can never let anyone down, including his son in this film, played by the nonentity aforementioned. The script by Julian Fellowes, the approach, the director, the design, all conspire in unison to leave the true Edwardian Age behind and enter into an overt fantasy-Edwardian Age for younger audiences who never knew any real Edwardians and might not realize just how hilarious every word that Wodehouse ever wrote really was. For those of us who knew genuine Edwardians (not to mention not a few surviving ancient Victorians as well), the fun of Wodehouse is the way he mocks, taunts, and teases the authentic types of the period by depicting them as the most outrageous caricatures imaginable. And as everyone knows, a good caricature only works if it closely resembles its subject. This film does not closely resemble anything that ever really existed, and was not planned to do so. I personally prefer the Wodehouse adaptations which affectionately and outrageously distort the truth, as opposed to this approach, which is to forget satire altogether and invent a wholly new truth where it is comedy rather than satire that is really the aim. For authentic vintage Wodehouse, one should see the three successive TV series called WODEHOUSE PLAYHOUSE, starring the amazing John Alderton, from the 1970s. Here it must be said that the design, the costumes, the look, are all simply dazzling. Taken in its own right, and forgetting its origins, this film is a tour de force of over-the-top but certainly scintillating fantasy. It takes the word 'camp' and raises it to a higher power. It is also great fun. But it is strictly for non-Purists only. I suppose that makes me impure.

Following scriptwriter Julian Fellowes's Academy Award for Gosford Park (2001), and its commercial success with a recreation of 1930s Britain, he was able to initiate the third film version of Piccadilly Jim. In itself, this was no small achievement, for the last P.G. Wodehouse movie on the English big screen had been The Girl on the Boat forty years before.

The Piccadilly Jim that finally emerged from Fellowes's screenplay was an interpretation deeply at odds with Wodehouse humor, the result of the selection of a director, John McKay, who was mismatched with the story. Unlike Robert Altman's direction of Gosford Park, McKay found the concept of a period setting distracting and labored to undercut it in every way. McKay sought to avoid the world of Wodehouse television adaptations and their country-house weekends. In its stead, McKay asserts an equivalence between the 1930s, the 1960s, and the world of 2004, as all one and the same.

McKay noted, "I think P.G. Wodehouse inhabits a parallel universe to the period he is writing about, so we should find a parallel universe to suit this Piccadilly Jim. We thus decided we would make up our own 'thirties'...." Every bit of decor looks less like the ostensible 1930s setting than one of the decade's science fiction visions of the world as it would shortly become. The designs attempt to evoke the satires of the sterile stylization of modernism in films by Jacques Tati or Stanley Kubrick. However, McKay has no real vision of his own; instead Piccadilly Jim is chock-a-block modern with anachronisms and absurd inventions. McKay's defiantly iconoclastic visuals are incongruous, their lack of internal coherence constantly preventing viewers from immersing themselves in the world of the story. Equally at odds with any narrative unity is the singing of modern songs and the presence of 21st century retro automobiles.

Costumes and make up are particularly outlandish, especially unbelievable coiffures that spike, thrust, or droop to one side. The romantic leads vary scene by scene from Jim in an enormous fur coat and scarf, to Ann in modern boots, to Jim and Ann in contemporary nightclub dress with resonances to 1970s disco.

In attempting to modernize Wodehouse, McKay lacks any conception of what has made the author successful. The opening sequence provides a sharp comparison of the divergent approach between the film versions of Piccadilly Jim in 1936 and 2004. In the former, Bayliss wakens Jim from a late night to discover he is asleep with his feet on the pillow where his head ought to be. Such a tasteful indicator of insouciance from the 1930s is beyond the sensibility of 2004; in this version Bayliss finds Jim in bed with three scantily clad floozies. Nothing could have been farther from the harmless spirit of Wodehouse, even when he portrays marital mores and infidelity in such theatrical adaptations as Candle-Light.

The Piccadilly Jim of 2004 is a true wastrel, a womanizer, brawler, and drunkard who is deeply unsympathetic. Robert Montgomery, the Piccadilly Jim of 1936, might have played such a character in a likable manner, but instead of the classical Hollywood stars who could so perfectly embody Wodehouse characters, 2004 offers the modern Sam Rockwell. His performance lacks charm or charisma; he plays the role as standard issue "bad boy." Of course, according to contemporary romantic formula, this must be the secret wish of Ann, whose characterization is altered substantially. Instead of Nesta writing thrillers, as in the novel, it is Ann who composes them, incorporating criminal brutality that reflects her own volatile, slightly disturbed nature. Jim compares her speech to that of Sam Spade, and her devotion to murder is portrayed as the direct result of Jim's scathing review of the book of her poetry. Yet her first impression upon meeting Jim (she does not know his true identity until the end) is that he is too much of a "Mr. Nice Guy," lacking the dangerous edge for which she yearns. Frances O'Connor plays much of the role in varying tones of hysteria, and frequent, rather obvious dubbing reveal an actress having understandable difficulty with her role.

The greatest error is in eliminating the sincerity of the remorse Jim must feel. In the novel, love changes him, and only later does Jim realize why Ann hates the man she never met: he penned a vicious review of her book of poetry. This theme was retained, according to surviving plot synopses, in the original, now-lost faithful 1919 movie of Piccadilly Jim, with Owen Moore in the title role. The 1936 film of Piccadilly Jim had Jim pen cartoon parodies of the Pett family in retribution for their condescending treatment of his father, before Jim knew Ann was their relative. The 2004 version makes an alteration that ruins the credibility of Jim's transformation. The columns under the byline "Piccadilly Jim" were penned by a ghost writer, meaning that Jim never did actually wrong Ann. To compensate, he need do no more than punch the real writer in the nose. Without the need for contrition, Rockwell etches a Jim incapable of remorse, rendering the central conflict meaningless. All that remains is a playboy who has found an equally wild girl.

If a 21st century movie adaptation of Wodehouse requires actors like Rockwell who need to be introduced in bed with three women, there is indeed little place for Wodehouse in theatrical feature films. 1930s behavior is not the same as the present, and having Ann arrange for assignations with Jim, or making him give a goodbye kiss to Bayliss, masquerading as his father, only seem crass. Perhaps it is best for Wodehouse to remain on television, where he need only appeal to narrower, more literary audiences, comfortable with the flavor of another, more distant era.