Hollywood, Vermont

I haven't been thoroughly following David Mamet's career, but just watching this film, "American Buffalo" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" I already get a feel of his unique style of writing. It's very witty, very original and he has certain trademarks, like quick exchanges of dialogue between actors and repeating of the same sentence of dialogue in a group of lines. Well, his uniqueness is quite evident in watching this movie and it works quite well.

First I'll mention the vast array of talented actors. I don't think the casting could've been any better. Character actor William H. Macy is brilliant as the almost unscrupulous director, who will do ANYTHING--and I'm not exaggerating the least bit--to get his picture done. Fellow character actor/fellow PT Anderson regular Philip Seymour-Hoffman turns in another brilliant, yet subtle performance as the shy but appealing and wildly creative screenwriter who is the fuel of this cinematic project. As I said, he's made a significant--and extremely impressive--transition from playing the airhead jerk in "Scent of a Woman" and "Twister" to playing deep character roles like this. He ranks among the top in my list of Best Underrated Actors (along with Macy) and I hope one of these days he'll become a household name. David Peymer, I think, delivers the best performance of his career as the fast-talking, sniveling producer. I've always known he was a good actor, but he truly flaunts his knack for acting and taking risks in this role. It figures that playwright Mamet would assemble a group of fine character actors, instead of simply casting people who "look good on camera." That's one of the advantages of having a playwright as a director.

The script is wildly original and kept me laughing. There are many interesting, memorable quotes. And this is just a fine adult comedy (Thank God!!). With the explosion of teen gross-out comedies, I'm sure audiences will cherish a comedy like this. It works in all aspects. Not only is it well-performed, but it's well-written (lots of comedies only contain one of those factors). And it's all done in good taste. So those of you expecting cheap sex jokes and low-brow gags involving bodily functions--sorry to disappoint you! There are no cliches. This movie is an explosion of Mamet's gift for creativity. Take for example, the relationship between Hoffman and the beautiful Rebecca Pidgeon. They don't have a sex scene. Most of their screen time is spent talking and getting to know each other, sharing their thoughts on writing, researching the town's history, finding out how much they have in common. Do we still see that in the movies? Character development in romance? In the scene where Hoffman is in the hotel room with Sarah Jessica Parker lying on the bed naked, and Pidgeon knocks on his door to greet him with a bouquet of flowers, there's no predictability. You would assume she would take one look at Parker's naked body and punch him in face. I'm not going to give away what happens, but that moment stuck in my mind, because it is the first film I've seen to go a different route with the whole "girlfriend catches you in bed with another girl" premise.

"State and Main" is pleasant, light-hearted, funny, original comedy and it's one I'd definitely recommend. If you want to see great performances and laugh at good, tasteful humor--you can't go wrong!

My score: 7 (out of 10)

David Mamet's `State and Main' is what `Our Town' might have been had it been conceived by a clear-eyed, modern day cynic. In this tale, a Hollywood film crew invades the idyllic hamlet of Waterford, Vermont, determined to capture on celluloid the simple bucolic virtues of a bygone era. The only problem is that those involved with the making of this film-within-a-film lack the requisite innocence themselves to do justice to the theme they purport to be exploring. They are all typical products of the crass Hollywood culture – boorish, self-obsessed and thoroughly amoral. All except the writer of the piece that is, Joseph Turner White (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the one character who is not only in touch with his cravings for a return to innocence, but who passes the moral test laid out for him along those lines at the end.

`State and Main' is a clever film, a cute film, a likable film – it just isn't a very FUNNY film. The Mamet specialty – flat, monotone, emotionless line readings – becomes grating and irritating after awhile. Both the small town rubes and the big city elitists come across as little more than tired stereotypes who really don't have anything particularly funny to say. As a result, most of the attempts at humor simply fall flat. We've seen these characters and situations countless times before – the temperamental star making exorbitant financial demands, the lecherous leading man endangering the production with his reckless sexual dalliances, the harried producers and directors fighting a constant transcontinental phone battle with demanding studio heads `back on the coast.' And it just isn't all that interesting. Part of the problem, I think, is that Mamet never really exploits or explores the setting he's chosen. Most of the townsfolk emerge as minor, background characters at best, with the possible exception of Rebecca Pidgeon as Annie, Joe's eventual love interest. Pidgeon, who looks uncannily like Marlo Thomas in her `That Girl' days, seems sweet as all get out, but the atonal delivery of most of her lines hampers the interest we might otherwise find in her character. Actually, none of these characters are very interesting – or very funny. In fact, most of them seem rather pathetic when you get right down to it, and Mamet fails to provide the satirical wit and bite that would mitigate some of their unpleasantness. He doesn't generate the kind of out-and-out, hearty laughter that Christopher Guest derived from his examinations of rural America in movies like `Waiting For Guffman' and `Best of Show.' Mamet's take is, in many ways, so cynical that he seems to have forgotten to engender the kind of affection for his people that helps keep condescension at bay. Or, perhaps, it is really so much simpler than that – maybe he merely neglected to write any truly funny material this time around.

The filmmakers who invade Vermont are patronizing, condescending and pig-headed...to the locals and to each other. Writer-director David Mamet gets in some good acerbic digs at show business and isn't afraid to make anyone and everyone look the fool. After all, it's only "just a movie" to us--to them, it's brain surgery at a cost. The cast seems to be having a great time, Alec Baldwin in particular. Philip Seymour Hoffman has never been so benign--and thats a good thing (what a nice change to see him relaxed, romantic and clean-cut). The picture isn't a barn-burner, it never crackles or builds comedic momentum like, say, "Tootsie", but it's a flip, funny, unfettered throwaway. **1/2 from ****

(This review refers to the DVD version of the film...)

I enjoyed this film immensely. I like Mamet's work: I've seen "House of Games" many times, and have seen "The Spanish Prisoner" twice. I like the multilayered, complex, odd, and offbeat nature of these stories. "State and Main" is similar, only different.

The whole concept of the movie seems kind of like, well, like taking a picture of yourself in a mirror, where you are taking a picture of yourself taking a picture of yourself. Only doing it without the slightest hesitation or twinge of self-consciousness. The actors in this film pull it off admirably, with an occasional ever-so-subtle twinkle in their eye to make it a truly fun movie.

This film is only the third film I've seen on DVD (the first two were "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001), and "Beat the Devil" (1954)). I am still amazed at the beautiful picture quality that DVD's are able to deliver. I just purchased a new DVD player, however, screen-wise, I don't have anything more than a very nice 13 year-old 26" Mitsubishi television... I'm not even using component video hookups. The picture quality is reminiscent of a box of glowing precious gems. I can't wait until I someday get an enhanced widescreen (plasma or LCD) television set. I predict that when that happens, you'll never pry me out of my recliner chair in front of the TV.

I also like the Special Features that you typically get with DVD's nowadays. With "State and Main", there is a lengthy commentary track where several of the actors make interesting running commentary about the film, while pertinent segments of the film itself are replayed in the background. Long, but worth watching.

Going by the generally good reviews of this film, plus my aforementioned admiration of Mamet's work, I took a chance and decided to buy this DVD instead of renting it. And I'm glad I did. It's a film very worthy of any serious movie collector's collection. I can imagine myself watching this occasionally, when I'm in a thoughtful and somewhat playful mood.

In the pantheon of David Mamet's films, I'd say State and Main ranks somewhere in the middle, but it's a good middle. The rhythm and pace is more like a sitcom than a feature film, sharply edited and light on its feet and with a sort of whitebread jazz motif loitering in the background, but the cast is certainly above average, and Mamet's screenplay is very charming punctuated with some funny sub-plots and a few very good (maybe even great) one-liners.

The story concerns a film production crew, running out of money, who blows into the quaint provincial town of Waterford, Vermont on a location shoot after getting run out of New Hampshire (for reasons that are very hush-hush). The wellspring of much of the humor is in the byplay between the corruptness of the film people and the "purity" of the locals, who turn out to be as rotten as some of the Hollywood crowd. There are also some hilarious insides on the world of show-biz and film-making (i.e. the associate producer's credit, the product placement for a dot.com in a movie set in the 1800's, the cinematographer who can't get the shot he wants, Sarah Jessica Parker's character who finds religion and won't show her breasts in the film - unless the producers pay her an additional 800 grand).

Mamet is not quite in the Woody Allen class of gagwriting, but he proves to be assured and witty without being too self-consciously clever (as he is in "Heist"). Some favorite lines: "I remember my lines. I just don't remember which order they come in."; "You don't like children, do you?" "Never saw the point of 'em."; and, of course "Whatever happened to 1975?"

William H. Macy gives a good funny performance as the wheeler-dealer director (as good as his work in "Fargo" or "The Cooler"), and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon are wonderful as the would-be lovers. This is a not great, but a good middlebrow satire of different worlds, very pleasant and expertly written, though just not savage enough to be brutally memorable. 3 *** out of 4