Movies In Brief
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.

BEING JULIA
R, 105 mins.
In Istvan Szabo’s new feature, “Being Julia,” Annette Bening chews scenery as if she’d been stranded on a desert island without an audience for years. (Actually, she’s been married to Warren Beatty.) Mr. Szabo’s film, though entertaining, seems somehow beneath his directorial potential, assuming “Mephisto” (1981) or even “Sunshine” (1999) is the yardstick. This is a romp, an old-fashioned light comedy best absorbed as a matinee.
The time is 1938; the place, London. Julia Lambert (Ms. Bening) is lighting up the English stage as no one ever has. Ostensibly happily married to Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons, at his droll best), Julia is, in fact, bored. So when Tom Fennel (a sorely one-dimensional Shaun Evans) pays her a flattering sort of attention, she falls for him. Even when it becomes apparent that ulterior motives color Tom’s devotion (shades of “All About Eve”), Julia can’t let him go. Until, that is, she meets her rival for his affections.
Mr. Szabo’s eye for production-design detail and Ms. Bening’s highly pitched performance carry viewers forward. Yet if Mr. Irons is underused and talents like Rosemary Harris and Rita Tushingham nearly wasted, there are very worthy moments from Bruce Greenwood, as Julia’s older would-be suitor; Michael Gambon, as the ghost of Jimmie Langton, her outrageous mentor; and Juliet Stevenson, as a saucy maid-cum-confidant.
But it’s too bad Mr. Szabo didn’t develop a sturdier vehicle for Ms. Bening. For, as she handily proves here, she’s up to the challenge and raring to go.
– David Mermelstein
P.S.
R, 105 mins.
There something about Laura – Linney, that is. Call it an aura of optimistic world-weariness, or the afterglow of the destroyed but not defeated. Ms. Linney, a fine actress who at 40 is finally coming into her own, elicits genuine sympathy like no one else today. At her considerable best – on the stage in plays like “Sight Unseen” and in films like “You Can Count on Me” – she holds a viewer’s attention like a tractor beam.
Based on Helen Schulman’s novel of the same name – with a script by her and director Dylan Kidd – “P.S.” is a love story with whiffs of the supernatural. Divorced and discontented, Louise Harrington (Ms. Linney), an admissions officer at Columbia, is on the verge of eternal bitterness when the application of an art student distracts her. His name, improbably, is F. Scott Feinstadt – the same as her dead teenage suitor.
In the flesh, F. Scott (a beguiling Topher Grace) is uncannily like, well, F. Scott. Louise falls for him the day they meet. What follows is disappointingly obvious: Is F. Scott actually Louise’s dead lover reincarnated? How can romance flourish between a callow, if talented, artist in his early 20s and a dried-up bureaucrat old enough to be his mother? (Questions about the impropriety of Louise’s having sex with an applicant are never broached.)
Mr. Kidd’s first film, “Roger Dodger,” showed considerable promise, but he wastes a fine cast here. Louise’s secretive high school friend is brassily played by Marcia Gay Harden; Louise’s priapic ex-husband, mopily characterized by Gabriel Byrne. Paul Rudd barely deserves mention as Louise’s brother, Sammy, but Lois Smith radiates good sense as her mother.
Ms. Linney’s performance is powerful, but what this film intends to say is never clear. Mr. Kidd composes elegant shots of scenes without meaning.
– David Mermelstein
EULOGY
R, 85 mins.
Michael Clancy’s cast features Zooey Deschanel, Famke Janssen, Debra Winger, and Ray Romano as members of a kooky estranged family who come together for the funeral of their patriarch, Grandpa Collins (Rip Torn). It opens with the umpteenth cover of “Doctor My Eyes,” which is funny, because the movie itself is the umpteenth remake of the wacky-family reunion plot.
Mr. Clancy tries too hard to get laughs. The film is mostly subplots, and the ones that don’t work outweigh those that do. A budding romance between Ms. Deschanel and a boyhood friend feels cliched (“It always seemed like nothing could come between us,” she remarks, “until the last night of last summer”); a running gag concerning the suicidal tendencies of the now-widowed family matriarch (Piper Laurie) runs out of steam fast; a late plot twist concerning Ms. Winger is awfully convenient.
The saving grace is Mr. Romano, who plays a sleazy, insecure lawyer with two horrible children. He is laugh-out-loud funny in each of his scenes, and Mr. Clancy uses him just enough that the character never grows tiresome or stale.
– Eddie Goldberger
THE FINAL CUT
PG-13, 104 mins.
In “The Final Cut,” Robin Williams plays Alan Hakman, a professional “cutter.” In the future, those with means have the option of having chips put in their brains that record every moment of their lives. When they die, cutters edit down the contents and the final product is shown at the funerals.
One day, while cutting together the life of a powerful attorney, Alan sees a memory featuring a man who looks just like a childhood friend of his who died in an accident. Only now it appears he did not die. This possible discovery leads Alan on a search for the truth, and along the way he learns something unexpected about himself.
Writer/director Omar Naim can’t seem to get his priorities straight. He introduces a subplot featuring Jim Caviezel as a former cutter who objects to cutters because they only show positive memories. But what does he expect? They aren’t being paid to make people look like jerks. “The Final Cut” wastes its time trying to answer ethical questions that are so theoretical they don’t need to be asked.
– Eddie Goldberger
HAIR SHOW
PG-13, 100 mins.
‘Hair Show” stars comedian Mo’Nique as Peaches, a down-on-her-luck salon worker. Relying on a hefty inheritance from her recently deceased grandmother, she becomes dejected when her sister Angela (Kellita Smith) is bequeathed $75,000. All Peaches gets is a Bible.
Soon, the IRS is giving her problems, telling her she has two months to come up with $50,000 in back taxes. She flies to Los Angeles to work at her estranged sister’s hair salon; soon the two siblings connect, and Peaches finds love with a local photographer. But all is not well, as Marcella (Gina Torres), a rival salon owner, does her best to make Peaches’s and Angela’s lives miserable. After vandalizing Angela’s shop, Marcella is challenged by Peaches and Angela to a winner-takes-both-salons wager at the upcoming “hair show” (essentially a big talent competition).
This is predictable but harmless stuff. There’s a laugh every now and again, and there’s a cameo or two (Serena Williams plays a tax agent), but you won’t be kicking yourself if you skip this one.
– Eddie Goldberger