Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Over the last few years here at AICN, I’ve gotten an unfair reputation as being a Spielberg-basher. I’ll be the first to admit... I was tough on bothA.I. and MINORITY REPORT, but I think I was fair. And I’ll also admit that I may hold Spielberg to a higher standard than many filmmakers. His early films are ingrained on me at an almost chemical level. I learned the rhythms of great filmmaking watching him work. RAIDERS, JAWS, E.T., CLOSE ENCOUNTERS... these films were benchmarks in my development as a thinking film viewer. My first acute disappointment that I can remember, the first moment where my expectations were not met by a movie, was when I saw TEMPLE OF DOOM. Spielberg not only taught me what a great film can be... he taught me how a filmmaker can misfire.
As a result of his last few films in particular, I’ve tried to set my expectations lower for Spielberg. Maybe that’s why I am so pleasantly surprised right now, sitting here and basking in that warm and fuzzy afterglow you get when you just plain love a movie. Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble wiping the smile off my face as I think back on the many highlights of what is easily Spielberg’s most complete and satisfying motion picture since SCHINDLER’S LIST or maybe even EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
First things first... this movie is fun.
Remember that? Remember fun? Remember a time before you started taking films apart and poring over the details and stripping them down to pieces? I do it. I can’t help myself. I’ll be watching a film sometimes, and it’s like this running tally sheet in my head starts ticking things off. “That was good. Hmmm... not sure about that performance. Wow, nice moment. What, are you kidding with that digital matte?” It’s not something I choose to do... it’s a result of having seen so many movies, and the result of the writing that I do here.
As a result, it’s a genuine pleasure when I just get caught up in something and find myself enjoying it, enjoying each new piece as it’s presented, surrendering myself to whatever the filmmaker’s got in mind. With this film, it’s easy. The opening title sequence is a winner, immediately giving you a sense of time and place. One of the things I was praying for as I walked into the film was that Spielberg and Hanks would have fun with the early ‘60’s period trappings of the story, and they did. They cut loose. As a result, what you’ve got here is wrapped up like a big box of candy, and that opening title sequence, animated in simple, stark images, lets you know right away what sort of ride you’re in for. So does that amazing score by John Williams. For a lot of years, I’ve been conflicted about the work Williams does. He writes strong, recognizable themes, but there’s a certain pattern to his work, and there’s some truth to the notion that familiarity breeds contempt. I don’t know that I’d say I dislike the work he normaly does, but I have found myself to be more and more unmoved by it. Here, he has crafted a piece of music that reminds me of the best work that Henry Mancini did with Blake Edwards, playful and nimble, daring you to sit impassively. It’s the first Williams score since SCHINDLER’S LIST that I’ll actually buy on CD, and it’s nice to hear Williams acknowledge his jazz roots with what is basically a piece for piano.
Another early indicator of what we’re in for is the luminous work by Spielberg’s regular collaborator, Janusz Kaminski. I may not always love the work he does, but I’m sure that it’s always exactly what Spielberg asks for. They seem to have one of the best ongoing rapports between a director of photography and a filmmaker in town, and this time out, they’ve created a sort of loving postcard to an era, a rich and detailed coat of bright and vibrant paint that they’ve rolled over Jeff Nathanson’s rock-solid script in order to help bring it to vivid life.
I know that this is based on a true story, and Spielberg acknowledges that with a sly wink in the film’s first real scene, in which Frank Abagnale is a guest on the game show TO TELL THE TRUTH. If you’re too young to remember the show, the setup was that a panel of celebrity contestants would interview three people, all of whom claimed to be the same person. They would have to guess at the end of the show to determine who was the real guest. Spielberg pulls a very subtle FORREST GUMP here, mixing footage of DiCaprio with footage from the real episode of TO TELL THE TRUTH, and it’s pretty seamless. Right away, the notion of what is true and what isn’t is put into motion, and the rest of the film continues to wrestle with those slippery definitions in one way or another.
Part of Spielberg can’t help but revel in the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (DiCaprio), who managed to pass over $4 million in bad checks and professionally impersonate an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, even going so far as to pass the Louisiana bar exam, all before he was 19 years old. It’s one of those “too good to be true” stories, and Spielberg milks it for all it’s worth. The good times Frank has are very good, but that’s not why he gets into it in the first place. Normally, I hate when things are overexplained, and there’s a danger that by giving Frank a motivation that kicks him off in his life of con artistry, they might somehow be condoning his behavior, but the film has just the right touch. We see Frank as a kid with his parents, Frank Sr. (Christoher Walken) and Paula (the still-lovely Nathalie Baye), and it’s obvious that he’s strongly moved by their affection for each other. Frank Sr. was a GI in WWII, and he met Paula in a small village in France. He tells the story of their meeting as a sort of romantic fairy tale, something that helps Frank Jr. believe in love. As with E.T., Spielberg’s own experience as a child of divorce informs much of this first stretch of the film. Frank Jr. watches his parents drift apart as he starts to pick up signs of financial stress and infidelity, and it tears him apart. He wants to remain in that dream as long as he can, surrounded by nothing but love and laughter, and the minute the real world intrudes, Frank reacts. He does the one thing that he knows will make his life better and make the pain go away...
... he becomes someone else.
It’s a defense mechanism, a survival instinct at first. The first example we see happens while he’s still in school, and it’s hilarious. He feels powerless so he simply slips someone else’s skin on for a few days, taking that power back. Even more telling is the way his father reacts when he hears about it. He tries to be stern, but he’s so amused by his son that he laughs, letting him off the hook, in essence telling him that there’s nothing wrong with what he did.
Frank Jr.’s efforts to make his father happy, to make him proud, make up so much of the film that even though Walken only has a handful of scenes in the film, he casts a shadow over pretty much everything we see. That’s one of the reasons that even though the film is very entertaining and even laugh-out-loud funny for much of its running time, I wouldn’t call it a “comedy,” per se. There’s a genuine sadness that accelerates over the course of the film and eventually turns to stark desperation, and Leo deserves credit for masterfully negotiating the difficult trajectory of Frank Jr.’s journey. As he slowly turns to the only father figure who is willing to actually push him towards doing the right thing, Carl Hanratty (played with obvious relish by Tom Hanks), Frank Jr. seems to be struggling with a conscience that is trying to spark to some sort of life, even as he smothers it because he doesn’t know any life except the one he’s made up.
A film about a con artist has to be smartly scripted, and this one is. Time after time, the escapes that Frank makes are both funny and genuinely tense. He almost seems to love being cornered. It’s a game. He falls in love with the notion of himself as some sort of James Bond-ian figure, even going so far as to buy himself Bond’s suits and the exact car that Bond drives. There are a number of geek culture references in the film, and they’re all used to tremendous effect. We’re reminded over and over that Frank is a kid. He acts older, and he has some serious heartache for someone so young, but he’s a kid. When he reaches out to Carl, it’s because he’s lonely, and he wants to find someone he can tell the truth to.
The film takes some rather remarkable left turns, and part of the fun of it is that you find yourself off-balance, not quite sure where each of these sequences might end up taking you. Amy Adams, who has a string of TV appearances and small roles in films like PUMPKIN, is very good as a nurse who Frank falls for, an astonishingly innocent girl named Brenda. She takes him home to meet her parents, and her father (Martin Sheen) takes a particular shine to the boy. For a while, Frank tries his best to be the man that he’s pretended to be, wanting nothing more than to stay here with this new family he’s found, and we can see why. Spielberg is a master of the details, and he shows us exactly what it is that seduces Frank about each new situation, each now personality. Hanratty stays right on Frank’s heels, though, and when reality comes crashing in, Frank finally starts to see just how badly he’s damaging not only his life, but the lives of people who he genuinely cares about. There’s an image at the end of the Brenda sequence involving a dollar bill dancing on the wind that is absolutely vintage Spielberg, clever and communicative in equal measure.
I could say more, but I think I’ve got to stop myself. Hell, I may have already said too much. All you really need to know before walking into the theater is that CATCH ME IF YOU CAN takes every minute of its 140 minute running time and makes the most of them. The film continues to pile on the pleasure all the way to the very end, and I really love the place the film ends up. I’m afraid you’ll hear people describe this film as slight, and it would be possible to see it and miss the point to some extent. If you only see this as a piece of entertainment, a fun little romp, then that’s fine. But if you look beneath the surface, you’ll find a work that proves that Spielberg is still capable of true, effortless greatness, and it rekindles my belief in him as a filmmaker. I hope he is just warming up for another great stretch of filmmaking, and that we have many more delights like this to come in the years ahead.
On that note, I’m out the door and on my way to Austin for the Butt-Numb-A-Thon. I doubt I’ll be updating while I’m there, but I’ll be back in LA and online on Tuesday night, and I’ll talk to all of you then.
"Moriarty" out.
