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By EdwardHavens
September 7th, 2007
Since the latter part of 2006, I've been thinking about writing a column called "The Best Films of 2005 You May Never See," which would have included Peter Chan's "Perhaps Love" (best described as an Asian "Moulin Rouge") and this absurdist comedy from Griffin Dunne, which no doubt would have finally earned Donald Sutherland his elusive first Academy Award nomination had it come out when it was first scheduled to.
But, alas, for some unknown reason, the decision was made to delay “Fierce People” and instead push Sutherland for his mediocre work in the lamentable Keira Knighley version of “Pride and Prejudice.” No Oscar nomination for Mr. Sutherland came, and “Fierce People” continued to sit on the proverbial shelf, and sit and sit some more. And sat there it did, for more than two years, unceremoniously dumped by its original distributor and ignobly picked up by the people who brought us such cinematic gems as “Captivity,” “Skinwalkers” and the “8 Films to Die For” Horrorfest. So now, Mr. Sutherland must do what so many other great actors have done recently, concentrate on television, and wonder if he will ever have another film role as rich and well-written as Ogden C. Osborne.
Sutherland isn’t the star of “Fierce People,” that honor going to the young actor Anton Yelchin (who, in his young career, has already seen several of his films, including “House of D,” “Alpha Dog” and “Charlie Bartlett,” delayed), yet it is the noble aristocracy of Sutherland and his character which permeate every scene from the second he is introduced, and not a moment too soon. The title of the film comes from the first act set-up, where we meet the teenaged Finn (Yelchin) bored with his life in 1980s New York City, wanting to travel to South America for the summer, so he may study the Fierce People of the Iskanani tribe with the anthropologist father he still has yet to meet. When he is busted trying to score drugs for his mother Liz (the still-radiant Diane Lane), a masseuse in desperate need of getting her life back on track, he discovers a different kind of Ferocious Creatures in the extended Osborne clan, when his mother packs the two of them off to live in a guest house on the massive estate of her extremely wealthy former client.
With Liz busy working with Osborne, Finn finds new distractions with the rouge’s gallery of eccentric figures around the well-kept greens: Bryce Osborne (a pre-“Fantastic Four” Chris Evans), the old man’s grandson, who quickly adopts Finn into his good graces, Maya Osborne (the precocious Kristen Stewart), Bryce’s sister, who quickly adopts Finn as a plaything of more than just board games, Jilly (the very sexy Paz De La Huerta), a house keeper at the estate who would also like to adopt Finn as a plaything, and assorted oddball characters rich and poor who spend their time in orbit of this most unusual man, who himself quickly adopts Finn into his inner circle, even replacing his own grandson with the boy in an annual hot-air balloon race.
Yet life is not all well on the Osborne property, especially for Finn, who finds himself getting caught in a deer trap, wondering whether his mother’s benefactor is enjoying her in unprofessional ways, and eventually (and quite brutally) violated by an unknown assailant.
A lot of this might sound like a storyline just a step up from Days of our Lives, or, with a lower budget and a few edits for content, a Lifetime Original Movie starring Gail O’Grady, Peter Bergman and Alex D. Linz, yet it is the strong cast, the refreshingly unruly direction of Dunne and the proudly melancholy screenplay by one-time “Saturday Night Live” writer Dirk Wittenborn that keeps “Fierce People” from being a humdrum affair. Lane has never been more radiant, Yelchin finally shows some of that promise merely hinted at for years, Stewart continues to show she is the most likely to become the Jodie Foster of her generation, and even Evans shows a depth of emotion unseen in his hackneyed performances in those insipid superhero movies. Combined, though, they don’t hold a match to the performance of Sutherland, who reminds us once again how great he can be when given a choice role, and how much Hollywood still doesn’t understand how to use him properly, even after forty years of service.
”Fierce People” is an excellent example of films being made for the right reasons. Not because it’s going to make everyone rich, and not because it’s going to win a plethora of awards... because, let’s face it, neither was ever likely to happen in the first place, the latter being even more true now that it’s lost the powerhouse Lionsgate awards team, who was able to bring an unlikely Best Picture win to “Crash” two years ago and established the company as a major player. “Fierce People” exists because it is an interesting story, interestingly told. No need for massive effects, massive sets, massive promotional budget or massive push of Happy Meal toys. It is what it is, a slice of someone’s life, who deserves better and learns the hard way that being allowed in to the gates of aristocracy doesn’t make one an aristocrat. Too bad this wasn’t made twenty-five years ago, when it still had a chance of being accepted by the masses because it was quirky.
My rating: A-