Word: comicly
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...nerd from outer space. But Shandling--also one of the film's several writers--is not enough of an actor to make him a sympathetic one. Harold does not live life; he comments on it. And that plays into director Mike Nichols' supercilious side. The producers have employed good comic actors, among them Annette Bening, John Goodman and Greg Kinnear, in an effort to take the chill off. But most of the women Harold encounters are unfunnily damaged--timorous or frigid, frenzied or alcoholic--while the men are sexist, henpecked or just clueless...
...nothing smug about them, partly because as virtual unknowns, they're eager to please. On the other hand, there's a definite limit to the number of moron jokes we can absorb in 100 minutes, and their movie exceeds it. These guys have a nice gift for sly, sidelong comic glances. One appreciates the Coke machine that stands, uncommented upon, in the middle of the funeral parlor. One would not entirely mind seeing the dinner-theater production of Oh! Calcutta! they casually mention. But they need to be as smart as they can be instead of as dumb...
Awaiting their fate, we mostly have to make do with the comic mainstream, wherein The Whole Nine Yards is currently bobbing. Directed by Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny), it's a story more machined than created, in which Oz Oseransky (Matthew Perry), an innocent Canadian dentist, gets involved with a semiretired mob hit man (Bruce Willis) and a legion of his former colleagues who want to whack Willis for ratting out their boss. Somehow Oz survives, and gets the gunman's gorgeous ex-wife (Natasha Henstridge) for good measure...
...movie has no vision, no fine comic attitude about life, except that it is one damned thing after another, most of them bearing no relation to reality and having no function other than to keep the wheels of the farce heedlessly spinning. But it features a dental assistant (Amanda Peet) whose dream in life is to become a professional killer, the divinely materialistic Rosanna Arquette talking in a deeply goofy accent and a self-mocking supercool Willis. It also has a really good joke about throwing up. You're entitled to ask for more than that in a comedy...
...much Bridget's unique tone was missed. (Bridget Jones, you've been gone too long.) The Edge of Reason will probably not engender any new angst-ridden debates about the state of the modern career women, but it does continue Fielding's fine form. In the tradition of comic novels, there's even a marriage at the end, although this reviewer is not about to say whose. Grab a Chardonnay; it's time to keep up with this Jones...