Word: lumet
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DIED. LUCILLE LORTEL, 98, patron of noncommercial theater; in New York City. Lortel was dedicated to providing creative havens for innovative artists. At her theaters in Connecticut and New York City, the onetime actress helped spark the careers of Sidney Lumet and Eva Marie Saint and showcased the works of Jean Genet, Sean O'Casey and Edward Albee...
This nasty little film is veteran director Sidney Lumet's uncharacteristically amateurish attempt at medical satire. Its flaws lie not in the performances (the degree of talent represented in the picture is substantial), but in Steven S. Schwartz's misguided screenplay. Rather than tackle issues with wit and intelligence, Schwartz chooses to use insultingly phony characters to reveal the faults of the modern health care machine through their broadly drawn flaws. A painful exercise in unrealized potential...
...stylistic choices Lumet has made with the film call attention to its lack of content. The sets look artificial and freshly constructed, and there are hardly enough extras milling around to make the ICU resemble an actual hospital ward. At selected moments, all sound other than dialogue is suppressed--people speak in a vacuum as doors slam and gurneys rumble by in utter silence. It's a unnerving device, but by putting a magnifying lens to the dialogue, Lumet only highlights the stilted writing and heightens the sense that he's out of his element...
...Lumet is not at all new to the directing game. He proved that he had the ability to make a razor-sharp satire with Network, and showed that he could tell intensely compelling stories with films as diverse as 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon. So how did the pro go wrong...
...mode of black humor that mocks the dead and dying to such a degree that the audience feels too much disgust to get riled up about HMO policies. The black humor itself isn't a bad idea; it is often a key and telling element of good satire. But Lumet has shot himself in the foot by making the humor too universal--if you show disdain for doctors, patients, bereaved family members, athiests, the strongly religious, HMOs and insurance companies, there isn't really anyone left to like...