mrsgsdesk

I can't quite shake this movie out of my mind, maybe because Adrian LeDuc is a mystery not only to us but to himself, but he doesn't question it, we do. He lives a life of denial in a sort of cocoon that protects him from reality. Colin Firth plays Adrian LeDuc in a performance of such perfection that the character becomes as real as someone I've known for a long time. When reality becomes too overwhelming to ignore - financial difficulties in this case - Adrian sees himself forced to open, somehow, his hermetic universe and invite a stranger into his house. A paying guest. It is hilarious to see him interviewing his potential tenants because he knows he will never ever be able to share his space with another human being. That's why the entrance of Jack, a magnetic and unexpected Hart Bochner, is so brilliant. The scene is constructed like a movie within the movie and movies are, perhaps, the only thing Adrian trusts and understands. The moment is one my favorite film sequences of all time. For a moment we step out of the reality of the moment and step into Adrian's mind. He sees what he wants to see in the way he wants to see it and the music builds and for a split second, we're him. We understand his need much more clearly than he does. Colin Firth doesn't play his character for sympathy, Adrian is a character difficult to like but we end up loving him because his longing is the most basic of all human longings: love, affection, companionship. Not once that fact is stated in the film and yet is there permeating every intention. This became crystal clear as I watched the film last night, for the first time in many years, there is an enormously human element that protects Adrian for being what he appears. He is a victim of some emotional disaster. We don't know what but it's there. If you look into Colin's eyes as he attempts a smile, you can see the child hoping to be rescued. It seems I'll keep finding new things in this 20 year old independent movie. I don't know why, it's a mystery and I for one, love mysteries.

Roman Polanski's life reads like a work of fiction. Tolstoi, Nabokov, Pasternak even Stephen King and Jackie Collins. The fact that it's not fiction but fact makes it overwhelming. He came from a world in which evil had taken away his parents in which he found his mission without any of the things that, most of us, would take for granted. That in itself is kind of admirable almost miraculous. This remarkable documentary puts things in perspective and it achieves that without rhetoric. How easy for a world consumed by gossip an innuendo to transform the man into a monster. I felt for Polanski, I could actually put myself in his shoes and weep. There is an element of innocence in his behavior that it's impossible to ignore. Hopefully, this film, will help justice to be done, real justice and real justice involves forgiveness and compassion.