La musica del caso

This is a film that defies categorization. It starts off seemingly as a film about high stakes poker players and evolves into something decidedly and deliciously different. James Spader plays something other than his usual blonde pretty boy types and Mandy Patinkin shines. If you are fed up with movies with plots you can easily second guess then 'The Music Of Chance' is for you.

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.

Paul Auster writes marvelous contemporary fiction, and this is a wonderful film adaptation of perhaps his finest work.

THE MUSIC OF CHANCE revolves around two very different protagonists. Jim Nash (Mandy Patinkin) is an ex-fireman, driving across America, and searching for meaning to his life. Jack Pozzi (James Spader) is a professional poker player, out of money, out of luck, and given a ride to New York by Nash. It emerges Jack has a game scheduled with two eccentric millionaires (Joel Grey and Charles Durning), so Jim puts up the capital with the last of his own money. But the poker game doesn't go quite according to plan...

Some people have described this film as "pretentious" - pretending to what exactly? Jack Pozzi and Jim Nash are two unusually clearly defined characters - one shallow, over-confident, tetchy; the other calm, reasonable, tolerant. Their eventual predicament is also disarmingly simple. That air of mystery to the film does not spring from narrative or character but from the viewer's own philosophies towards life. Does one choose one's own path or is it chosen for you? Chance or fate? Freedom or incarceration? Meaning or, in Nash's words, "just bullshit". So in fact even if you think the events onscreen have no deeper meaning, well then that *is* the meaning. For you anyway.

The acting is universally excellent, with Grey, Durning, M Emmet Walsh, and Chris Penn illuminating supporting roles. But Patinkin and Spader dominate the film, with two absolutely captivating performances. Philip Haas's direction is suitably under-stated, and there is also excellent use of music, from jazz to classical.

THE MUSIC OF CHANCE is an absorbing and intelligent piece of film-making. If only there were more films like it.

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.

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!