(Life imitate art imitates life imitates art… and I’m getting a headache here…)
CAST: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, David Morse, Pamela Reed, Anthony Heald, David Caruso, Stanley Armstrong, Gottfried John.
DIRECTOR: Taylor Hackford.
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and rather unpleasant love triangles straight ahead.
In past reviews, I’ve talked about the LLT - or “Lopsided Love Triangle.” It’s a cinematic situation in which a film character is caught between two people, one of whom is nearly-perfect, and the other being a near-perfect piece of shit. In the real world, the decision of who to choose would be a complete no-brainer. In the movies, though, our protagonist, who might have been portrayed as intelligent and sensible in the early going, suddenly displays the judgment of a retarded orangutan - and dithers this way and that about who to choose. When it’s perfectly obvious even to a dog who should be chosen and who should be shown the door.
While the LLT is prevalent in many films, a rarer type of love triangle is what I call the ULT - or “Unpleasant Love Triangle.” This is a cinematic situation in which the third (and normally disposable) point of the triangle is actually much more sympathetic than the leads whom the film is supposed to revolve around. Basically, you care less about the leading man and leading woman, and more for the “Other Person.” And when the leading man is Russell Crowe, you know the movie is in trouble.
The ULT is alive and kicking in PROOF OF LIFE, unfortunately. The story revolves around Alice Bowman and Peter Bowman (Meg Ryan and David Morse), two Americans living overseas. She is a corporate wife and he is a construction executive living in the fictional South American country of Tecala. Alice and Peter have tensions in their marriage, specifically dealing with Alice’s inability to adjust to life in Tecala and her lingering sadness over a miscarriage from when they were living in Africa on another “tour of duty.” Then, as if to show Alice that things can always get worse, Peter is kidnapped one day while enroute to the dam he’s helping build outside the capital.
How you like them apples, Alice dear? Can we try a little gratefulness from now on?
Enter Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe), a “K&R” expert. Hate to disappoint those of you who think “K&R” is some special section at Home Depot. It ain’t. Nope, it stands for “Kidnap and Ransom.” Terry, apparently, is the Shiznit of the K&R world. Basically, he is sent to Tecala to help oversee the negotiations for Peter’s release, and to communicate with the kidnappers - who are a pretty nasty bunch.
After some confusion and complications with Peter’s company letting their “K&R” insurance lapse (don’t you hate it when that happens?), Terry finally agrees to help Alice and her bitchy sister-in-law Janis (Pamela Reed), who has flown over from the U.S., try to work out a deal with the kidnappers. Free of charge. How nice of him. Could the boner he has for the married Alice have anything to do with it?
Now, here comes the “Unpleasant Love Triangle” part: Alice and Terry begin to fall in love. Which would be fine - if Peter had been portrayed as a boorish asshole. But no… the script has established him to be kind, caring, responsible, and honest. To make matters worse, the movie constantly cuts away to him being held prisoner in the mountains undergoing torture and plotting to escape with fellow prisoner Eric Kessler (Gottfried John). Oh, and Peter goes on an on about how he wants to make it back to his wife.
Oh, the irony…
Meanwhile, back in the capital, Terry and Alice are exchanging major googly eyes with each other. In fact, the sexual tension between them is so thick, you’d have to be a corpse not to be able to see it. Or just Janis - who seems completely oblivious to the fact that her sister-in-law and the hunky negotiator are just one accidental bump away from ripping each other’s clothes off.
However, the attraction is not lost on Dino (David Caruso), Terry’s colleague. In fact, Dino does the right thing and confronts Terry about it. Terry, of course, denies it and says things are just business as usual. And those backrubs are strictly professional, too, right? Whatever. The bottom line is Dino pretty much tells Terry to snap out of it and join him in the real world. Or, more accurately, the Third World. Because let’s face it: Tecala looks like a shithole.
Meanwhile, we cut away to more scenes of Peter in the kidnapper‘s lair in the mountains doing the following: (1) suffering, (2) being tortured, or (3) plotting an escape. Then we cut to more scenes of Alice and Terry ogling each other and basically drooling out of the corner of their mouths. By the time the third act rolls around, you’re starting to wonder if the makers of this flick really expected us to root for these two. And you know I love me some Russell Crowe - so for me not to warm to a character of his is like a Body Snatcher taking control of me.
Will Terry be able to negotiate Peter’s release? Given that he’s falling in love with Peter’s wife, does he really want Peter back? What about Alice? Given that she was pretty much a raging bitch to Peter the night before he was kidnapped, and has basically been eye-fucking Terry since he got on the case, does she deserve to have Peter return? And again, I have to ask: what the hell did the creators of this film expect us to do? Side with a couple of potential adulterers while the husband is cradling a picture of his wife up in the mountains? Just because they’re played by Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe?
Don’t think so. Nice try, folks. Try again.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: There are folks that judge PROOF OF LIFE based on the off-screen antics of its leading man and woman during filming. I am referring to the affair that Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan had while filming this movie - which, according to the tabloids, led to a divorce for Ryan and her then-husband, Dennis Quaid. I don’t have to point out the parallels between this off-screen love triangle and the one in PROOF OF LIFE. Basically, we have the same scenario of two people thrown together and falling for each other while the woman’s husband is absent. It’s almost uncanny.
However, anyone who holds that real-life drama against PROOF OF LIFE is very misguided. They don’t have to - PROOF OF LIFE’s problems are right there in the script. Personally, I couldn’t care less what Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan did while filming this movie - that is their business and Dennis Quaid’s. I am judging this film based on its own merits. And those merits are very much lacking.
Sure, the film is glossy and technically well-made, with solid performances from everyone concernedm and a potent (unsurprising) chemistry between its two leads. Director Taylor Hackford directed one of my favorite films, AGAINST ALL ODDS, and Russell Crowe is my favorite actor. Over the years, I have learned to appreciate Meg Ryan and her fluid ability to do both comedy and drama. And while I have never been a loyal fan of either David Caruso or David Morse, I have always respected their work.
Basically, all the ingredients are there. What the film is missing, however, is heart. The film’s emotional core is hollow. Ostensibly the love story between Alice and Terry, the center of the film just doesn’t work. As Alice becomes emotionally closer to Terry, and as Peter suffers more and more in the mountains at the hands of his kidnappers, we can’t help but feel our loyalties shift. Very much the same we found ourselves sympathizing less and less with Jules (Julia Roberts) in MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING, and more and more with Kimmie (Cameron Diaz), our regard for Alice and Terry changes as PROOF OF LIFE unfolds. It’s hard to root for people who are flirting with behaving badly when someone whom they should be thinking of is suffering greatly.
I know that this kind of thing happens in real life - all the time. I know that the only thing predictable about attraction is its unpredictability. Same with love. You can be a sucker for stocky, blonde, blue-eyed men all your life - but then one day, when you least expect it, you are bowled over by an athletic, dark-haired guy with greenish-brown eyes (more green than brown, actually). Someone unexpected. Or you can be nuts about voluptuous redheaded sirens - then suddenly find yourself head over heels for a tomboyish brunette.
Bottom line: attraction knows no formulas or rules or designs, despite our stated preferences. So, Alice and Terry’s unexpected connection isn’t farfetched, when contrasted with real life.
But that’s real life. In the movies, things play a little differently. Especially this movie. Shades of gray are welcome - but use too many of them and you risk losing the audience. Ostensibly, the fact that Alice is married already is supposed to create conflict - and it does. However, as Alice and Terry become more and more overt with their feelings, it siphons off our sympathy for them. Especially as we see more and more of Peter’s suffering. It might have worked if director Taylor Hackford would’ve kept the love story more implied rather than explicitly shown. Hard to say. This romantic plot thread is not just tricky - it’s almost unworkable. Short of making Peter a complete jerk, I don’t know how else to justify Alice and Terry’s flirtations.
To sum up, PROOF OF LIFE is an average film that might have been better with some more rewrites of the script. Even Russell Crowe can’t change the fact that this story needed to be reworked. Because the “Third Wheel” of the “Unpleasant Love Triangle” is actually more sympathetic than the hero and heroine, the emotional motor of this movie doesn’t run the way it should, making the film almost derail. Fortunately, the cast helps keep it on track until it reaches its unsatisfying ending - something that’s supposed to be a riff on CASABLANCA’s finale.
The difference between PROOF OF LIFE and CASABLANCE (one of many) is that the latter film’s love triangle was far more compelling and was not unpleasant. And not suffering from “ULT” makes a big difference, indeed.
