Tu chiamami Peter

Stephen Hopkins' "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" is a monumental film that undertook the difficult task of understanding the late Peter Sellers. This unique actor, with such a complicated personality and who lived such a turbulent life, comes alive in this HBO production based on the book by Roger Lewis, with an adaptation by Christopher Markus.

Peter Sellers covered quite a lot of ground during his life. He was one of the best actors working in the England of the fifties, working in all those charming comedies that made him a star in his native land, but alas, was not well known in America because he had not yet been hired by Hollywood until his "discovery" by director Blake Edwards, who offered him the part of Inspector Clouseau after Peter Ustinov had turned down the role.

Prior to his worldwide recognition, Mr. Sellers had to work a lot in order to make ends meet. Life with his first wife Anne came to an abrupt end, when he discovered she had fallen for the interior decorator the couple had hired. Then, there is the fascinating episode with Sophia Loren, in which Mr. Sellers, in his mind, begins to think he is in love with her, only to be rebuked by Ms. Loren, a woman who was happily married to Carlo Ponti, and had no desire to become the second Mrs. Sellers.

The third woman in Mr. Sellers life is the beautiful, but much younger, Britt Ekland. From the start, one can figure this union was not to last. The age difference and the different cultures indicate these two were completely mismatched, as we get to watch in painful detail how the marriage disintegrates.

Mr. Hopkins makes his star, Geoffrey Rush, assume a lot of roles in addition of the main one, Peter Sellers. Geoffrey Rush shows his versatility in playing them with great style. His biggest achievement seems to be how he captures the essence of Peter Sellers, the man, and expose him to us in all his complexity.

The acting is superb. Emily Watson and Charlize Theron are seen as Anne and Britt, two women that left their mark in the life of Mr. Sellers. Both are excellent in the film. Miriam Margoyles plays Peg Sellers. John Lighgow is Blake Edwards, the man who elevated the actor to an international acclaim.

The film is a documentary, as well as a biopic about this man who gave a lot of joy to movie fans through his films. Geoffrey Rush has to be thanked for bringing him to life, as well as the director, Stephen Hopkins for giving us an understanding on what it was to be Peter Sellers.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers has to be one of the most creative, complex and revealing non-documentary movies ever made about an actual person, living or dead, and the inspired casting of Geoffrey Rush is spot on - he's magnificent in all the various and sundry Sellers guises, especially the ones from Dr. Strangelove and The Pink Panther's bumbling inspector. The rest of the casting is excellent too, particularly Charlize Theron as the second "B.E." in Seller's life, Britt Ekland.

The thing I liked most about this movie was how the script let us see how Sellers created his characters - how he was constantly "in character" or inbetween characters. He admits in the movie to being an empty vessel, with no personality of his own; this is what allowed him to be such an insufferably cruel bastard to all the people who were closest to him: he used his immersive, endlessly obsessive artistic process as a weapon and, ultimately, as a substitute for being human.

It's always brutally hard as an artist to find the balance - you have to be true to your work, naturally, and as an actor especially you're constantly redefining your inner reality, but you can't do it at the expense of the people who love you and whom you profess to love; there has to be emotional and mental discipline otherwise you become psychotically self-indulgent, as this film showed Sellers to be. The most poignant scene in the movie for me was when Sellers, in his typically childish and deranged state, tells his little daughter, "I'm an empty shell, there's nobody inside," words to that effect, and she answers, with a sad wisdom that no child should have to learn to possess, "Yes, daddy."

I never thought I'd find myself feeling sorry for Britt Ekland: this film of Peter Sellers' life and career achieved that. One must assume that many of the details are based in truth - his behaviour to his children in particular was awful.

There is no doubt that Sellers was an amazing talent, and troubled as so many are (Tony Hancock, for instance) - the toll that took on those closest to him must have been great.

But to the film: it's worth seeing for the extraordinary performance from Geoffrey Rush, uncannily portraying Sellers. There is fine support, in particular from John Lithgow as Blake Edwards, Miriam Margoyles as Sellers' mother, and Charlize Theron's Ekland.

For anyone interested in Peter Sellers life and work, this film is certainly worth watching, if for nothing more than the incredible re-creations of scenes from Sellers' films. Geoffrey Rush is transformed into a nearly dead-ringer for Sellers, through the magic of make up and prosthetics. But as talented as he may be, no one can recreate the subtleties of the master, especially the use of his eyes…Sellers' eyes were by far the funniest aspect of his physicality: narrowing, widening, always moving, punctuating his actions and illuminating the emotions within, even as part of the most farcical of performances.

Such a rich and varied life would lend itself to a miniseries but of course it would be a copout to suggest that at least a glimmer into the life of a man couldn't be done successfully within two hours. What this movie drove home for me was how terribly short the human lifespan really is, and how little time we have to truly discover ourselves and come to terms with our own frailties. I felt that the basis of Sellers unhappiness, which manifested itself in inexcusable cruelty to his family, friends and co-workers, was a direct result of his childhood, which was never really addressed in this film. It was, in his own words to Michael Parkinson, not a very happy time in his life. Growing up in the theater circuit, being in the company of boozy and abusive 'theatricals', and being raised by a domineering mother and what I gather was a rather passive and emotionally unavailable father set the stage for a man who obviously felt deprived of the things that give us self-esteem and confidence. No one in his adult life could give him the things he should've received from his parents as a child, and he took out that frustration on those closest to him.

Also interesting were the glimpses of his fellow Goons (Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe) at various chapters in his life-in the church at his mother's funeral, in the crowd at the premiere of 'The Pink Panther'. They represented what he considered the happiest time of his life and they were a constant presence, flitting in an out of his life at key moments in the film, like the ghosts of Christmas Past.

Interesting also in how one decision, in this case his delusional infatuation with Sophia Loren, set in motion a series of dovetailing mistakes in his life, which took him further and further away from a relatively healthy existence. He had twenty years more to live and it turned out to be not enough time to turn things around.

Biopics are a devilish thing. Is as if the subject himself boycotted the operation from beyond the grave. The ultimate breach of privacy, isn't it? One feels like a voyeur, compelled and revolted at the same time. Goeffrey Rush's brilliant portrayal makes things even worse, I mean better, no I meant worse. A life of massive ups and downs for public consumption. Peter Sellers with a Cary Grant complex and a talent bigger than himself told in bits and pieces. To the ones who know about Sellers is a rather frustrating experience. Dr.Strangelove yes but not Lolita? The relationship with Blake Edwards deserves a movie of its own. The first massive heart attack was during Billy Wilder's "Kiss Me Stupid" but there is no mention of that. I know that to compress such a life without a structure within a two hour film it's an impossible task so what we're left with is a courageous attempt at tell us the sickly existence of one the greatest that ever was, a superlative performance by Goeffrey Rush, an astonishing Charlize Theron as Britt Eckland and very little else. I suppose that should be enough. Yes, it should, shouldn't it?