In the Shadow Of the Twin Towers

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Given the interrogation techniques we’ve come to expect from movies about the attacks of September 11, 2001 – the reckless provocations of Michael Moore, the repeated nervous-system assaults of “United 93,” the sweet-talking and symbolic bludgeoning one should expect from the Oliver Stone treatment this August – it’s a relief to encounter “Great New Wonderful,” a film that would rather coax meaning out of the tragedy than beat it to a pulp.

Director Danny Leiner, best known for the absurdist stoner comedies “Dude, Where’s My Car” and “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” has foregone top-dropping babes and fart jokes to etch a gentle, low-key portrait of New Yorkers in the wake of September 11. While “Great New Wonderful” may have the occasional ripple of understated humor, it ranks primarily as a serious and touching – if overly timid – exploration of collective trauma.

Much of that humor is produced by the smug Dr. Trabulous (Tony Shalhoub), a grief counselor whose name suggests an adjective for the confounding fallout that remains from the tragedy. “Shock can be a tricky thing,” he explains to one patient, a survivor of the World Trade Center attacks (Jim Gaffigan) who appears to be pretty sound of mind, before launching into a series of preposterous insinuations that seem to create more psychological issues than they solve. But then the film begins to tease out the subtle, all-pervasive nature of the tragedy, and you begin to think Sandie might really need help after all.

These sessions constitute just one of the five separate mini-dramas that unfold in the film’s depiction of New York City the year after the terrorist attacks. Emme (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a rising pastry chef whose fame is going to her head; a young couple (Tom McCarthy and Judy Greer) struggles to raise their problematic 10 year-old; Judie (Olympia Dukakis) meets an old acquaintance who shakes her out of domestic ennui; and Avi and Satish (Naseeruddin Shah and Sharat Saxena), two security agents of contrasting temperaments, cruise the city and see it from vastly different points of view.

Less than 90 minutes long, “Great New Wonderful,” is in some ways a shyer, East Coast version of “Magnolia,” which also spliced together a community of sufferers in a city where people focus relentlessly on Number One. Even if the film never really penetrates the underlying malaise shared by its characters, it does well to acknowledge that the source of their troubles is hard to pin down.

Given the magnitude of the terror attacks, particularly for New York residents, the film could have pointed all arrows toward ground zero. But Sam Catlin’s script is too graceful for that. The characters remain only dimly aware of the ache that lies beneath their antsiness, and the film’s oblique approach – discreet allusions bolstered by a few poignant shots of the lower Manhattan skyline – represents an attempt to bring it to the surface with the utmost sensitivity.

“We’re all tired,” a school official assures the two parents at their wits’ end. A quick cut to a jet overhead adds a layer of tension to a heated exchange in a high-rise, while wailing sirens in the background imply that Emme is not quite being herself when she flips out on an assistant. A social climber whose uneasy mix of sparkle and desperation that Ms. Gyllenhaal gets just right, Emme – like most of her milieu – comes across as unaffected by the tragedy. “After all that’s happened, I cannot believe that nothing has changed,” observes a rival cake-maker for the rich and famous (Edie Falco) over lunch. It doesn’t appear to sink in – except then it does.

The film, conceived in 2002 but only completed last spring, when it was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, also suffers from delayed realization. The market’s to blame, not the filmmakers, but it’s a shame nonetheless: One imagines how much more powerful “Great New Wonderful” might have been three or four years ago, when its ginger exploration of the city’s gaping wound surely would have offered fuller succor and catharsis. Seen today, it is surprisingly less moving; one reason may be that it is merely tapping on scar tissue.

Also, the frequent crosscutting and short run-time does not allow any of the five scenarios to develop into much more than artful snapshots. The story of the nice young couple in particular registers as incomplete. They have an aloof monster child who bears no resemblance to either of them. But is he the symbolic spawn of terrorist violence? Or does the post-traumatic stress of life in New York make them unable to deal with their own offspring? A more robust drama might have fleshed this out.


The New York Sun

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