Amori e ripicche

Stevenson is a young publishing executive. He buys a house with his girlfriend despite he non-committal nature of their relationship. His problems are made worst by the discovery of two bickering ghost sharing his house. However when his girlfriend leaves him, they help him win her back and teach him about lasting love.

This wants to be a romantic comedy about eternal love. However it fails in two areas – romance and comedy. The story is very simple – man loses girl, man meets ghosts, ghosts help win back girl. However it feels so heavy you'd think you're watching War & Peace. This effect isn't helped by the total lack of laughs in this `comedy'. Few if any of the lines are funny (mainly because they totally lack any sort of charm or wit) but what makes it worse is that the actors are playing to the laughs! There are plenty of scenes where gaps seem to have been left in dialogue or in routines to allow the audience to finish rolling in the aisles. These may only be a split second long, but in the absence of laughter they feel longer.

I watched this with another Caine comedy – `Without a Clue'. That was average as well but his performance really lifted it. Here he can't do the same – his character is charmless and occasionally resorts to mugging to get by (witness his dancing after returning from Rio). Similarly Maggie Smith has nothing to do and feels too snobbish to be likeable. The relationship between the two is also dry and it's unfortunate that their `eternal' relationship is supposed to be the model for true love. Spader, who can do good given the chance, seems totally out of his depth with his two classy co-stars. He resorts to doing some sort of sub-par Hugh Grant impersonation – full of stuttering and blinking when under pressure, except he can't make it seem charming in the same way that Grant can (when he's on form) and his character quickly becomes shallow and uninteresting.

The film collapses to a happy ending at a new years party – but by then any interest I had in the characters had evaporated. The film is only about 90 minutes long – but it felt like 3 hours, every scene felt dull and dragged out.

Overall, even with Caine, Smith and Sam Shepherd filling out an impressive cast list – this totally fails to impress. It's not that it's the worst film ever made – but it's an average story, with average characters, average performances and comedy that totally misses the mark. The end result? A dull, unfunny film that is impossible to care about or enjoy.

The executive Stevenson Lowe (James Spader) moves to New York to work in the publishing house that has belonged to his family for generations. He buys an old townhouse to live alone, disappointing his girlfriend Julia (Polly Walker) that believed they would move in together. Soon he discovers that the house is haunted by two amicable ghosts, the former theater stars from the 20's Max Gale (Michael Caine) and Lily Marlowe (Maggie Smith). Further, they are married and argue most of the time. Meanwhile, Senator Will Dodge (Sam Shepard) woos Julia and she breaks up with Stevenson. His professional and private life turns upside-down, since the publishing house decides to accept to publish commercial and shallow books; his former lover Michelle Tippet (Marcia Gay Harden) hits on him; Julia travels to Washington to meet the Senator; and the two ghosts quarrels all the time. But he learns how much he loves Julia. Will he succeed to have she back?

"Curtain Call" is a delightful romantic comedy, one of those films that is pleasant to see more than once. The wonderful cast with James Spader, Polly Walker, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Sam Shepard and Marcia Gay Harden has a perfect chemistry and seems to have fun while performing their characters. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Adoráveis Fantasmas" ("Lovely Ghosts")

It's funny that these sort of films used to be the mainstream back in the 30s and 40s. Now they're the "small" films. First of all, I can't believe they got this cast together.Even the smallest parts have great people in them. And the camera loves few women like it loves Polly Walker. This is a film for adults. Spader's character is a book editor and the film concerns how to keep love going as you get older. Geez, no wonder it's not mainstream.

James Spader, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Julia Walker, Marcia Gay Harden, and Sam Shepard star in "Curtain Call," a 1999 film directed by Peter Yates.

Spader plays Stevenson Lowe, a bachelor with a steady girlfriend (Walker) who buys a gorgeous old townhouse. However, he soon learns that it's haunted by its former owners, a married couple (Smith and Caine) who were theatrical stars in a past era. And even in death, they don't get along. Julia, his girlfriend, unhappy that he can't commit to her, breaks up with him, and his family publishing business is going in a direction he's not happy about. Through it all, he learns some things about love and taking a stand from his ghostly guests - though they would say he is their guest.

This is a nice film, but formulaic, and the script isn't very strong. It's pleasant enough, and the performances are certainly good from this wonderful cast, which also includes Buck Henry and Francis Sternhagen. Although not groundbreaking, it's a pleasant way to pass the time if you're looking for light entertainment.

CURTAIN CALL (2 outta 5 stars)

Harmless, barely amusing tale of some blank-souled Yuppies who move into a house which turns out to be haunted by the spirits of a bickering husband and wife acting team (Michael Caine, Maggie Smith). James Spader plays the only person who can see them... as they continue to dispense advice... and turn his life upside down as he tries to avoid serious commitment to his long-time fiancée. Not really very funny, not really very romantic, not really very anything... just a way to kill some time. Not one of the more memorable comedies about ghosts annoying the living. Maybe with a better script the cast could have salvaged something out of it.