The Simian Line

I saw this movie at the Hamptons International Film Festival. It was definitely my festival favorite. It was also a treat to see Harry Connick Jr., Samantha Mathis, the director, Linda Yellen, and the child star there. They gave a great interview. It was a lot of fun.

The Simian Line tells the story of three couples who get together for a Halloween party. They bring in a psychic (played by a VERY funny Tyne Daly), who finds that there are ghosts in the house (William Hurt and Samantha Mathis). Hurt plays a Southern Gentleman and Mathis a whimsical 1920's flapper. When no one belives her, Daly angrily reveals that one of the couples will be forever broken up by New Years.

From here, the audience watches the relationships mingle and shift shape while the couples try to remain together. One of the couples is Harry Connick Jr and Lynn Redgrave. They maintian a May/December romance. Redgrave plays her part with such power, I wouldn't be surprised to see an Oscar award next year. Cindy Crawford and Jamie Sheridan are another couple. Sheridan is the wall street exec. working endlessly on a merger, while Crawford is the patient wife trying to start a party planning business. Crawford is surprisingly good in this "glamour"-less role. The third couple are Monica Keena and Dylan Bruno who play two 20-somethings trying to make it as rock stars. (Keena belts out a great song entitled "Kiss My Ass.")

All in all, I really liked this movie because it had several funny moments which got me laughing out loud, as well as some deeply moving emotional scenes. I would recommend this movie to anyone, but I would say it's an especially good "date movie".

Great cast, sloppy, thrown-together movie with huge plot holes and characters for whom I cared very little. Saw this "film" at a movie class - the director came after the move and told us that it was filmed in 12 days. And, boy does it show! Just a few of my beefs: (1)Two of the main characters are ghosts, but they don't really add anything to the film. I suppose that they are part of the plot, but I feel that they could have been left out entirely. Moreover, the questions that their presence brings up were very distracting: we see them drinking champagne and sleeping and flirting and touching humans which made me want to know the rules of ghosts - are they really just like us? Do they have bodily functions also? Don't you think that people would hear toilets mysteriously flushing in their house at all times? One of the ghosts was uncomfortable sleeping in a chair - are we really to believe that most people have spare beds in which their ghosts sleep?(2) A young couple rents a room from a successful, very neat and sophisticated real estate broker (Lynn Redgrave). The room we see them inhabiting has painted graffiti all over it and incredibly loud music blaring at all hours - can we as an audience really believe that their landlord would not only put up with this, but be friends with them? (3) We witness fights between couples where very serious issues are brought up, but never resolved. When some of these couples make up, the issues are never brought up again, just blissfully ignored. Yikes. The entire film smacks of (very bad) "TV movie". A disaster.

"The Simian Line" was filmed in 1999 and spent two years on the shelf before getting a limited American commercial release; here in Britain it bypassed cinemas completely and premiered, appropriately enough, on the Sky Premier cable channel (on the Tuesday of the week it opened in New York and Los Angeles, in fact). In all cases it's not hard to see why, and not just because like the opening credits of "The Sopranos," the presence of the World Trade Center here has a definite resonance in these post-September 11 days.

Director/co-writer Linda Yellen shot the movie on a low budget and in very little time, and unfortunately it shows all the way through; technical blotches aside, the would-be whimsical and romantic story of four couples told by a psychic that one of them will be history at midnight on New Year's Eve intertwines its various storylines (all too insubstantial for their own good) far less effectively than your average episode of "The Love Boat," with scenes ending abruptly, some poor dialogue and situations, and no narrative flow to speak of. Throw in excessive use of pointless voiceovers and the inexplicable presence of a pair of ghosts (William Hurt and Samantha Mathis) and it should be a disaster... but it's just a mixed bag instead.

The film has a number of good points; several scenes do hit home, although a bit less time devoted to Lynn Redgrave worrying about losing her devoted younger lover Harry Connick Jr and a bit more development of the other strands would have given the movie more balance. But it's biggest plus is its ensemble cast, most of whom play a big part in making this slight tale watchable. Only one of the team - apart from an irritatingly accented Hurt - lets the side down; it's not who you think it is, either. Instead it's Tyne Daly's embarrassing psychic, about whom the less said the better.

This is, on the other hand, a good deal for Redgrave, for Connick, for Monica Keena, for Jamey Sheridan... and especially for Cindy Crawford, who although stuck in the least dramatic plotline does deliver a good, genuine performance as Sheridan's equally business-minded but not quite as relentlessly driven wife. This is to her what "Coming to America" and "The Nutty Professor" were to Eddie Murphy - the film may not be all that good, but the work is another matter entirely. (Note from one of Cindy's male fans to the rest of them: Watch for the bathing scene.) Time to give her a break for "Fair Game," methinks. As for Yellen, better luck next time.

This film is a credit to writer/director Linda Yellen's hard work. The story was unique and heartwarming and the performances were great! Tyne Daly's character was so great and unexpected, Redgrave was unbelievable, as always, and who knew Cindy Crawford and Harry Connick were such great actors. I would recommend this movie to anyone!

THE SIMIAN LINE (2000) ** Lynn Redgrave, Cindy Crawford, Harry Connick Jr., Tyne Daly, William Hurt, Samantha Mathis, Jamey Sheridan, Eric Stoltz. Unusual romantic comedy with a twist: set in present day Weehawken, NJ three couples undergo some serious navel gazing after a kooky medium foretells their future that one pair will ultimately break up thanks to some meddling yet friendly ghosts with mixed results. At its heart is an improvisitory feel throughout and if the plotting seems half-baked consider filmmaker Linda Yellen's 12 day shooting schedule (!) on location.

She gets the most for her dollar in her unlikely cast who all seem to be in their own little movie.