CNS Movie Review: Heights

Heights

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The Merchant-Ivory production team is best known for its lush period films based on literary classics, though they have dabbled in contemporary tales such as "Le Divorce."

So it is that the team and its partner, Richard Hawley, have produced "Heights" (Sony Classics), a reasonably absorbing if not quite believable story of the interactions of present-day New York creative types within a 24-hour period.

First there's Diana, a larger-than-life actress (a black-haired Glenn Close), currently starring in "Macbeth." She lectures her acting students on putting more passion into their work and life. She shows an interest in young actor Alec (Jesse Bradford), who auditions for her, even inviting him to her dinner party that evening, but Alec is oddly standoffish. (We find out why much later.) Diana, meanwhile, learns her husband is cheating on her.

By strange coincidence (of which there are many in "Heights"), Diana's photographer-daughter, Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), and her Jewish lawyer-fiance, Jonathan (James Marsden), live in the same building as Alec. There's also Peter, a British journalist (John Light) involved with an (unseen) male photographer named Benjamin Stone, who takes artistic pictures of nude men. Peter is on assignment from Vanity Fair magazine to interview all of Stone's former models. (Vanity Fair is one of several actual New York institutions used in the film.) He soon discovers most of the models had affairs with Stone, and, to a person, they describe him as a loathsome creature. (There's also a second gay plot development later in the film.)

This is the kind of movie where every character seems to know the other. You might get the idea that New York is one big "six degrees of separation" kind of place, as one of the characters, in fact, states, so a major suspension of disbelief is called for here.

Director Chris Terrio's adaptation of a play by Amy Fox is, on the whole, well-acted, and there are several big names among the supporting players: George Segal, Isabella Rossellini, Eric Bogosian, singer Rufus Wainwright, Michael Murphy and Denis O'Hare, among them.

But, as often happens, when a film is adapted from theatrical material, the result is rather artificial. The situations are more unreal than the dialogue which, surprisingly, plays fairly well. It's a pity that most of the younger characters casually pepper their conversation with expletives.

The film contains profanity, rough language, some sexual banter and foreplay, gay themes, premarital relationships, a same-sex kiss, a violent episode and some voyeuristic activity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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