The most noteworthy thing here is that comedian Barry Humphries is in The
Leading Man but plays a man, if not the leading one, instead of the comic
character upon which he built his reputation, Dame Edna Everedge. Edna was
sorely needed to leaven this dough. There is nothing particularly amusing
about the English resentment of American stars - but for the bitter truth
that they need them even more than they disdain them.
The Leading Man is about Jon Bon Jovi as a big Hollywood star, who invades
the persnickety little world that revolves around the belly button of Lambert
Wilson - as England's greatest living playwright. It's a stretch, no matter
how you look at it. They go nose to nose over their distinctly different
thespian ambitions, then measure their manly parts over the director's girlfriend,
finally taking on as their final combat the playwright's Italian wife, played
by Anna Galiena, who could use some company - on all levels.
Paradoxically, Galiena stands out, because she creates a subtle and credible
character out of the abandoned wife who watches her husband lie and betray
her, then others. She manages to abandon the playwright for the Hollywood
star in a story of slow revenge. This is not so much the story of the leading
man, but rather the story of Elena Webb, yet Anna Galiena seems to be alone
in seeing it. Galiena has sophistication about drama, so she refuses to
be dramatic, which serves her very well in the midst of too much sincerity,
too many neuroses and enough self-importance to sink the Titanic. Yes, that
one too.
Stretched out to cover the activities of too many characters, the narrative
loses a distinctive point of view. There is little suspense, but great interest
in watching the playwright's wife come to terms with the extra-theatrical
affairs of her husband and gain control over her own life in order to put
the man in his place. When Galiena is not on the screen, however, it could
just as well be a backstage soap opera.
What I find particularly interesting is the way the American actor is viewed
(perhaps because I'm writing a book called As Others See Us about the way
Americans are portrayed in European films). This film sums up the anxieties
felt by most theater professionals about the cheap tricks and expensive
lifestyles of Hollywood stars. In one scene, Jon Bon Jovi puts up a great
pretense at being lonely and alienated in a foreign land and searching with
furrowed brow for meaning. It's hard to tell if this is directed to reveal
the American as an intellectual phony, or if Jon Bon Jovi just can't sustain
a performance beyond the two-minute limits of a rock song.
The script is very knowledgeable about the wiles and ways of theater people,
but has misplaced its emphasis, in my opinion. Perhaps the dread American
habit of trying to goose a career with a turn on stage is threatening the
integrity of the English stage. But I don't think that's as interesting
as the story of Mrs. Webb, wife of the world's pre-eminent playwright who
throws him over for facile California. An English film that got to the heart
of that would be more than honest. It would measure the cost of being insular
- it might have the sense to be a farce instead of a tragedy.
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