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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Much more than it seems, April 15, 2001
The DVD could have more special features; a commentary by the Director (Joan Chen); interviews with the principal actors; commentary by the composer. Out takes. We get none of these. But the film is well crafted, very well written and entertaining. So this purchase is a good one.On its beautiful surface, Autumn in New York is a typical romance. From the colors-all golden-red (leaves), plum-colored (dresses, sweaters), warm orange (lamps), subtle charcoal grays, elegant blacks, rich ivories, and crystalline whites-to the pale beauty of the ingenue (Charlotte), often the brightest image on the screen and therefore the place to which our eye is naturally drawn. Will with his thick silver mane, mature good looks and urbane way, complements her perfectly. But this is a subtle, sly film and not everything is what it seems. The director (Chen) tells us as much in a brief transition scene when a briskly walking Charlotte slows to ask an elderly woman on the street if she needs help shortly after we have seen Charlotte herself collapse in the previous scene. Charlotte is a woman-child contradiction, sometimes having more in common with the children (her bedtime-story butterfly scene) of Will's contemporaries than with Will himself ("I'm a creep. You're a kid."). The story and dialogue are spiced with irony and delicious inversions. Charlotte for all her seemingly naïve "wow"ness seems to control the outcome of most events planned by Will. In their first extended conversation (on the phone) he points out that she says "wow" an awful lot. ("You're all grown up now. When is that going to stop.") But when she emerges from the limo in a gown he bought for their date, it is his turn to say "wow." (You will too when you see Ryder in the dress). Later in the evening, Charlotte takes Will's "unprecedented and therefore utterly unpredictable," come-on line, identifies it as such, then declares it true not because of anything Will intended, but in spite of him. He thinks he's doing the seducing but in fact it is she who seduces him (the stairway scene). The morning after (breakfast scene), he tells her they have no future, "only what we have now." But it is Charlotte who trumps him by taking his standard noncommitment line, quoting it back to him after having given it a deeper meaning (she'll soon be dead), once again making it her own. Between the two, it is she who wields power through language and through the intensity with which she occupies time: "What shall we do, Will...with this moment that we're in?" Despite her poetizing, soft voice and impeccable manners, there is a voracious quality to Charlotte's love. It is selfish (she knows, as does Will, that she will be the one to leave), hurried ("I'm way out front in the love race.") and implacable ("...give it...share it!"). Charlotte has to live and love a lifetime in a single season. Will is actually the young kid in the way he lives his life; a string of young women with no commitments, an out-of-wedlock daughter he has ignored, his casual betrayal of Charlotte with an ex-girlfriend at a party. His use of language in not taking responsibility for his behavior: ("I guess I had sex with Lynn McHale...") So what we have is this duality, a romantic, poetic surface contrasted with a pragmatic underside where we get a good look at the gears of love's machinery. This begins in the second scene of the film in the kitchen of 458. Will is busy locating a Chilean bass that is masquerading as an Arctic Char, finds the bouilla baisse missing. Lots of cursing, complaining, and asking for raises. All of this activity is the basis for the ambience out front. Charlotte, grandmother and friends are celebrating her 22nd birthday. After a charming introduction and a little witty reparte, Will sends over 3 bottles of Crystal. His maitre de knows it's an investment. This doubleness returns again when we overhear Will's driver and doorman chatting. The driver showed up early because it is raining. Charlotte and Will may be spending a romantic night out, but these guys are working. They are part of the machinery that helps make the romance possible. Charlotte delivers Will's hat and we see him chewing out one of his vendors for the quality of Parmegian cheese he had recently delivered. Will is still the tough taskmaster when he accuses Charlotte of being late. He recovers quickly enough with a compliment "what's the point of being young and beautiful if you can't keep men waiting," but we get the idea. Of course the most powerful contrast of all is Will and Charlotte's last moment together. He recites poetry, they exchange expressions of love and commitment, but this romantic parting is harshly interrupted by the medicine-speak of Dr Grandy and a nurse as they burst into the room and brusquely roll Charlotte away for surgery. The romantic moment is not quite done but life has its own timetable. The last time we see Charlotte she is alone staring up at the harsh surgery light, to me, one of the more powerful moments in the film. I could go on, the themes: the linking of sex and responsibility, truth and lies, birth and death, childhood versus adulthood, transitions (metamorphosis), time, surface and what lies beneath. The symbolism: white for death, purple for mourning, the butterflies, the swan image in Charlotte's art and the single swan in the last scene (they mate for life), reflections (windows, water, mirrors, glass beads). The sound track (especially the Elegy for Charlotte and Jennifer Paige's Beautiful during the credits) works perfectly. This film needs time and patience. Immerse yourself in it and Autumn in New York will yield its treasures a little at a time and move you deeply.
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