Eye of the Beholder

It seems that there are a lot of people slagging this film off. I can see why they are, but I disagree.

If you are looking for a big money, same as all the rest thriller then ignore this film.

If you want something a little different and interesting, give it a try. Good performances and an strangley intriguing plot keeps you watching.

Give it a try, at least it's not Titanic.

I had not seen this movie when originally released because of bad reviews. I did however recently pick up the DVD in the $5.99 rack at Target mainly because I really like Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd. They did do their usual fine job of acting but I must admit that the plot was convoluted and illogical and the first time through watching it normally, I was disappointed in the lingering confusion.

I then watched the one deleted scene and the alternate ending and it changed my whole perspective. Sometimes alternate endings do not really change much but this was the most dramatically different alternate ending I have ever seen. It wrapped up everything for me and made the whole thing crystal clear and satisfying.

I can not imagine why they left out this long segment that does not so much result in an alternate ending per se, but rather fills in a lot of the holes that I had in my head. It is worth your time to rent the DVD and see this alternate ending. It may change your mind about the movie.

Interesting to look back on. So was Eye Of The Beholder a let down? Well the answer has to be a no! I went to this movie having seen a single trailer that looked more intruiging that 'mindblowing' and I think that's the whole basis of the film. It's not an epic or a groundbreaking Matrix-esque special effects extravaganza...It doesn't pretend to be. It's straight up and honest. It's not glamorous and sometimes you wonder why the characters are doing what they're doing. The ghost of McGregor's daughter is an interesting addition that shows his lonliness and complusion to the job and at the same time his yearning and feeling of loss towards her. I came out of the film feeling like I had witnessed something that not many people would watch - and that they'd be missing out! So yeah, you might prefer to go and watch epics at the cinema but why not rent this out for a lazy saturday evening. It won't blow you away but at least it has thought behind it!

This movie made absolutely no sense at all. NONE. 'What?' and 'Why?' were questions I was asking throughout the film. I didn't understand what was going on at all. It seemed that each scene had absolutely nothing to do with the next, and in a movie like this you just assume "well it will all come together at the end." But it doesn't. Nothing is explained. I never understood what Ashley Judd's character was trying to do, and I never understood what "the Eye" was trying to find out. It's completely incoherent. I didn't understand this at all. I always thought that it was coming together, but everything always fell apart. It's no wonder that it wasn't released for so long after they made it. It didn't make any sense. It was a complete waste of time. It's like they were just making it up as they filmed it. If it wasn't for Ashley Judd's sudden popularity, I doubt it would've been released at all. Don't bother. I'm upset because I just wasted an hour and a half of my life.

Despite over 300 comments, some people are still posting saying that it was beyond them and what do the rest of us see in it. Those naysayers should actually read the posted comments.

I watched the film twice, read Marc Behm's book and then watched it again. I would like to see the original film version, 'Mortelle randonnée'(1983) (it has a really good soundtrack album by Carla Bley), but so far have not found a video-rental shop that has a copy. Like the director, Stephan Elliott's major film, 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert', 'Eye of the Beholder' is a road movie about eccentrics, one of whom is into wigs and changing her appearance. Like Marc Behm's script for 'Charade'(1963) it is about a spook who is looking after a young woman who doesn't really know what is going on. I can't think of any parallels with Marc Behm's Beatles film 'Help!'(1965). Actually Behm has 13 IMDB credits, and most of them are difficult to find. As are his other novels.

The major improvement over the book is the addition of the hi-tech snooping equipment. The book's Eye is an old-fashioned gumshoe who simply looks though bedroom windows and the like. Also the making the lost daughter's ghost more solid is an interesting effect. We don't have to know that the girl is dead to think of the image of her as a ghost. I didn't notice that she is played by two actors. The problem is that Ewan McGregor is too young for the role. At the end of the book he dies of old age. I think that the book captures his slipping into obsession better, and part of the picture is that Joanna Eris is about the age that his daughter would have been. A side-effect of his computer tools etc, is that it becomes more unlikely that he would not be able to find his ex-wife and daughter. But as the film makes him a Brit in the States, they would be back in Britain.

Obviously the script had to drop a lot of the incidents in the book. In the film it is extremely implausible that he is able to get a room next to Joanna in the New York hotel. In the book he tails her for several months through a few murders, which would give him a chance to take a sublet in the building.

The rich blind man is called 'Forbes' in the book. Given the real-life family of that name, it was probably best to change it.

In the book the scene where Joanne is identified in the restaurant where she is working, takes place in New Jersey. In the film it is said to be Alaska, although we know that it is somewhere in Quebec. Why didn't the film say that it was Quebec. Then the crew would not have to work so hard hiding all the French signs. I presume that in 'Mortelle randonnée' all the places were changed to places in France (where apparently Marc Behm lives).

An ironic detail. The book has several cross-dressing incidents: the Eye does nanny-drag to continue his surveillance; Joanna and a woman friend not in the book do male drag to rob banks and filling-stations, and the Jason Priestley character, Gary, is a cross-dressing fetishist. I suppose that the director of Priscilla feels that he has done the topic.

I would have liked the film to have kept the incidents where Joanna almost recognizes the Eye, including the time when she hires a detective to capture him.

The film has a lot more in it than most thrillers. It avoids the cliches, challenges the viewer, but doesn't really gel. There are too many nagging questions afterwards.