Par amour pour Gillian

David E. Kelley is a brilliant writer. The early episodes of Picket Fences & Chicago Hope, the later episodes of L.A. Law and just about every Practice & Ally McBeal ever made are examples of his great talent. The only problem he has is trying to convert that TV magic to the big screen. His movie scripts are enjoyable, but lack the energy and excitement of his great TV writing.

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday deals with a man (Peter Gallagher) who loved his wife so much, he just can't let her go. The wife's ghost seems to appear to him on the beach and he spends hours talking to her while neglecting their teenaged daughter (Claire Danes). The dead wife is Michelle Pfieffer, the best-looking ghost I've ever seen in a movie! The tension between father and daughter grows and the arrival of Gillian's sister (Kathy Baker from Picket Fences) and her husband makes things even more tense.

This movie has a good cast who all give strong performances and there is a memorable scene with Claire Danes and Laurie Fortier in thong bikinis, but the movie is hurt by Kelley's weak script, which is not up to the level of quality we've come to expect from him.

This is one of the worst play-to-film adaptations I've ever seen. Of course, that's because it's a terrible hack job of one of my favorite stage plays, so I'm biased.

It does my heart good to see David E. Kelley completely bombing out every time he tries to make a feature film. The guy is so overrated (in my opinion.) And he really, REALLY blew it with this movie, considering how excellent, how genuinely moving the source material is.

When I went to see the film (with well-founded trepidation), I noticed that the only laughs generated out of the dialogue were for jokes that are found in the original play. Unfortunately, Kelley has done great violence to the original story in his filmic massacre...I mean "adaptation"...and the movie falls flat, flat, flat. It utterly misses the deeper points of the stage drama.

In fact, except for the basics of plot, it barely resembles the award-winning play at all. Esther, instead of being a professional psychologist, becomes in the movie version a busybody nag who has taken a couple of psychology classes, which somehow qualifies her to analyze the main character David. Pretty lame.

David E. Kelley (not the main character, thank God), in his infinite wisdom, turns Cindy into a horny little slut who tries to seduce Paul, instead of keeping her the teenage girl next door who has the sweet, and somehow sad, schoolgirl crush on David. Gillian's depth and complexity of character completely disappears. In the film she's merely an ethereal beauty who hangs around to inanely chat with David. The point of the play is that she's both saint and sinner -- something Esther wants David to remember, before he idealizes her into a fantasy that drives him literally crazy.

Ugh! I could go on, but it will simply make me angrier and angrier. This movie stinks. Read the play. It's only a hundred thousand times better than the movie, that's all.

To Gillian is a movie that defines the word uneven. The casting and performances were perfect, but not enough to save the writing. Overall, it wasn't bad, but then again, the fact that it was overlooked at awards shows wasn't about politics (this time). The only thing that makes this movie worthwhile (and yes, it is worthwhile) is Claire Danes. She plays the part of angst-filled, emotion-driven, hormone/peer-influenced teenager to perfection. Also, Michelle Pfeiffer is very good, but unfortunately only for ten minutes. Peter Gallagher was more than adequate, as was the supporting cast. The main problem was that they had no on-screen chemistry, which is often reflective of the writing and/or directing.

David Fincher wrote this one. He should stick to TV. Overall, this film is better than should be expected from a team whose credits include Lake Placid (Fincher) and Ninja Turtles 2 (Pressman-director).

Many people have losses that are very hard to deal with, and they must "Let-Go" on their own time and in their own way after processing. I think this movie was well done. I believe that many of us who have lost either a spouse, parent, sibling, etc ... have kept in contact in some way in our heart, soul and mind. Here is to Dave and Gillian, and a very good screenplay!

This is actually a good case study for people to see everything that could be done wrong being done in one place :-) Not kidding at all. If you can realize how and why is this movie ridiculous and at least a few things that should have been changed pop up at you you'll learn something from Kelley's failure - and Brady's, since the play is not exactly stellar on it's own.

Like the lack of a real antagonist (Esther could have been that but that requires some writing spine and ideas), the lack of a real dramatic reversal, watering down left and right (starting with long "karaoke" sequences), making all characters lukewarm and mediocre to the point that there are no clear leads, a "ghost" talking about her own non- reality akin to a spineless, self-doubting pseudo-intellectual and loosing even a trace of a mythical etc. etc.

The audience for live theater plays may tolerate some of these things for all kinds of reasons and theatrical directors sometimes do have more spine and artistic bravery to tear a mediocre play apart and bring out some sharpened characters and stronger tension and emotion. In general, theatrical talking heads require some brave intervention in order not to be plain boring.

So this is a rare confluence of a mediocre play, completely spineless adaptation and equally spineless direction. The sole mystery is whether Michelle Pfeiffer did this to make her husband happy of whether he was writing lukewarm to make her happy :-) One of them has to be the principal culprit.