The Music of Chance

The Music of Chance is one of those movies in the "eclectic" section at your local video store, one that you pick up on that Thursday when your girlfriend is off on a trip and no one will go to the pub with you. One you wouldn't actually go out and rent to watch with others, lest they find out how pathetic your life is.

But once you get one of these movies home, you find it's absolutely gripping. Sure, it's actually a picture-novel--not purely a visual experience, obviously based on something. But you watch it. Then you watch it again, and listen more carefully. Then you return it, so that you can tell your friends that they really ought to see this movie, it's got that guy, you know, the fat guy, and this other guy, and it's about poker, and your friends ignore you, and think to themselves, "hope his girlfriend gets back soon--he's a wreck these days." But really, they should see the movie. But they don't. And the crushing loneliness and isolation of modern life weighs down on you all the more heavily.

*That* is what this movie is like.

Now here's a rare bird indeed--a '90s movie with an imaginative, original plotline and interesting characters. There wasn't a moment in this film where I could tell where it was going. It wasn't just random and arbitrary like, say, "U-Turn" or "Lost Highway". With a measured pace, it's constructed like a weird dream--if you liked the films of Philip Kaufman or Lindsay Anderson, or the plays of David Mamet, I think you'll have a good time with this one.

The premise of the movie is that two very different kind of drifters hook up. One being Pozzi (James Spader), a professional card player and the other Nashe (Mandy Patinkin), an ex-firefighter whose wife abandoned him and their young daughter. He has left his child with his sister and is driving around the country in an attempt to run from his pain.

Nashe decides to bankroll Pozzi in a poker game with two rich eccentrics (played dauntingly enough by Charles Durning and Joel Grey). Pozzi is convinced the men will be an easy take but as fate would have it, he not only loses Nashe's last ten grand and beloved BMW, but with Nashe's help, they get themselves ten thousand dollars in debt to the two wealthy men. One of the players has the idea of letting them pay off the debt by building a wall monument out of 10,000 stones imported from a castle in Europe. Pozzi is outraged but cannot bring himself to leave Nashe, who is agreeable to working off the debt. They'll live in a trailer in the meadow for several weeks while working on the monument. Their days of labor, supervised by Calvin (M. Emmet Walsh) and evening discussions are interesting enough.

I have the feeling the movie would have been more enjoyable if I'd read the novel and couldn't help but imagine how the book was worded as I watched the movie a second time. It is one of those films I can watch again and again. I'm still trying to figure out the lessons besides the obvious: gambles, playing out of your league, getting in over your head and that there's no such thing as a "sure thing".

Pozzi and Nashe may have different world views but they don't clash, they actually compliment each other rather nicely. I thought it profound when Pozzi blames Nashe for breaking his winning streak by wandering off during the fabled game and into the "City of the World" room. There Nashe swipes a tiny replica of their antagonists. Pozzi asserts that Nashe broke the streak by violating the Universe in some way, destroying the harmony they had enjoyed while winning. Nashe thinks this absurd and that Pozzi is giving power to a little piece of wood and sets it on fire to prove his point. This "City of the World" room is toy land built by one of the rich poker player's (Joel Grey's Stone). It's his view of what was and what should be. Disturbingly enough, it contains prisoners happily paying for their crimes. It's a tool for foreshadowing some events and also portrays the wealthy eccentric's power over their pawns. And though the "City of the World" is Stone's baby, one gets the feeling that Charles Durning's Flower character was the real ruler of their kingdom.

The movie only features about ten actors, making it clean and simple fare. James Spader does a superb job of making a creepy, little hustler likable. He is helped by Mandy Patinkin's soothing performance of a damaged but composed soul who's sympathy for Pozzi is contagious.

Beneath Nashe's stoicism his emotions are as palpable as Pozzi's outward agitation. A soft-spoken and strangely plotted story, it's quite a rare gem.

If you like films where Eddie Murphy plays a host of parts by donning rubber faces, or a cop who is one day from retirement, or a protagonist who is shot at endlessly but never dies, or films celebrated for destroying the greatest number of cars in chase scenes, or Scooby Doo endings where everything is explained for you, then you probably aren't going to like this.

That is not to say that there aren't good films like that, just that different films have different audiences. I told someone once about The Music of Chance and how I kept going over it in my mind the next day. Twenty five years have passed and I'm still thinking about it. He hinted he was very sorry I'd had to see a film like that, and that's not what films are for. They're just supposed to fill 98 minutes of your life with something until you get onto the next thing. He'd misunderstood that I love that this film had stayed with me, had occupied my time on countless occasions other than one of the many viewings. It's so rare to find something that can compel for many years (the other example which comes to mind is Dogtooth - I think people who like Dogtooth would like The Music of Chance and vice versa).

I'm not going to talk about the plot, more about how this film made me feel. Films, for me, are too often little compartments where everything is neatly tied up and people get what they deserve. Perhaps as an escape from real life, which is nothing like that at all. What The Music of Chance does is make you believe it's allegorical but without revealing the whole. You get feelings about things, rather than solid answers. There are clues even in the names of the characters, as if there's some twisted nominative determinism at play.

There are also moments of deep unease. Not because of a psychopath with a chainsaw, but because you got a glimpse at the bigger picture (but only a glimpse). Things which seem harmless (like a faithful representation of a model village) are imbued with metaphysical dread. As for the ending, I can understand why it would disappoint some but, for me, the slew of questions the film left me with were multiplied by the final scene. It was, in itself, a huge payoff.

I don't generally believe in giving 10/10 reviews because it implies perfection (or close to it). But, in this case, 9/10 doesn't feel right (and I've had 25 years to mull that over). This is a wonderful, wonderful film with great acting but, sadly, more people are going to dislike it than like it, because it's not the kind of thing we're usually presented with. More's the pity!

THE MUSIC OF CHANCE (1994) *** Mandy Patinkin, James Spader, Joel Grey, Charles Durning, M. Emmet Walsh. Little-seen gem of a film with Patinkin en route to play in a high stakes poker game and picks up scruffy, greasy con man Spader who wants in only for both men to wind up in some weird circumstances this side of "The Twilight Zone". Nicely modulated acting and a truly bizarre conclusion.