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Interview

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INTERVIEW is a smart little independent film adapted from the 2003 Theo van Gogh film by the same name, a film that drew a lot of attention based on a script by Theodor Holman, which in turn was based on an idea by Hans Teeuwen sparring the famous Dutch actress Katja Schuurman with actor Pierre Bokma. In this adaptation Steve Buscemi reworked the Holman screenplay with the help of David Schechter, changing the female role to a tabloid type bombshell actress (also named Katya, played with razor sharp clarity by Sienna Miller) with a disgruntle political reporter Pierre (Steve Buscemi) whose career is on the skids requiring that he take lousy assignments such as this interview to stay alive.

Other than a disastrous opening in a classy restaurant where the two characters realize they are ridiculously mismatched as an interview pair, the entire film takes place in Katya's loft. Katya appears shallow and short of goals and Pierre only acquiesces to complete the interview when he suffers a head injury and is invited for ice and drink to Katya's place. What ensues is a battle of wits in which each of the two characters discovers more about each other than either cares to disclose, and after a 'mating dance' of sorts the two return to their separate corners of the boxing ring - each having a final twist on the other's private life. It is a play within a play and the words make all the difference.

Sienna Miller is becoming one of the more important actresses on the screen and in this role she proves her mettle in a superbly nuanced role. Steve Buscemi may not have been the optimal choice to play Pierre, but he is sharp to watch and is never short of intelligence, both as an actor and as a writer/director. Not an action movie and not a film for those who need strong narrative, but for viewers who enjoy the barbs and wit of a sparring match, this is a well-made example of the genre. Grady Harp, December 07

This is the first of three films, which are American remakes of feature films directed in the Netherlands by the late Theo van Gogh. Actor/Director Buscemi was specifically chosen by the original producer to direct the film. He chose the lead role for himself. I have not seen the "original" and am basing my comments just on viewing the DVD of this US version.

The film is 85 minutes long and, except for 2-3 minutes at the beginning, and even less at the end, there are only two actors on the screen talking and interacting with each other. And nearly all the action takes place in one New York City apartment - though it is a big loft apartment! And yet this is not a quiet conversational film like "My Dinner With Andre". There is definitely a sexual thing going on here but you'll note that the R rating is for "language and strong sexual situations", not nudity. There is no nakedness at all. Yet, like some of the prime scenes in "Body Heat", there is definitely sexual tension in the air. And, not unlike "Body Heat" this is an emotional duel between a man and a woman where what is said is not always the truth.

I was not familiar with lead actress Sienna Miller before this film. (I loved Buscemi in "Ghost World"). Until I watched the two featurettes (the requisite "Making of...." and a brief interview with Director/Star Buscemi), I was not aware that Miller is British. She has an LA accent down pat. And it's perfect.

Note that the locale can be a bit confusing. Miller's character is a TV actress and is hounded by Paparazzi so the film should be set in LA. But the loft set and the mention of being in Washington in a few hours, gives the viewer the impression that it's in lower Manhattan. But you'll find yourself listening to the words and watching the chemistry between the two characters that you won't even think about it until the film is over.

This is not a great film that will win big awards. It's an "independent" And for the 90 minutes or so that you are watching this DVD you won't find your mind wandering or getting bored. Give it a chance. I did, and I'm glad I did.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

Who's using whom? I ask myself that question every time I see a celebrity fleeing the paparazzi on television, or hear about how stars hate pushy reporters prying into their lives. Because the relationship is very symbiotic: the entertainment media makes the star; the star is fodder for the entertainment media. Each needs the other, but it's a love-hate relationship that's more about hate than love most of the time. And both sides lie incessantly. It's a relationship built on mistrust.

That's a lot of what Steve Buscemi's Interview is about. Buscemi himself plays the interviewer, and Sienna Miller, in a performance that deserves an Oscar nod but will surely not get one, is the spoiled-brat starlet with the world at her feet. (And oh, man, can Miller do a whiny, snotty American accent to perfection.) The "interview" goes on all night in her loft (a loft that strikes me as shabby for this famous actress, and probably has more to do with budget restraints than reality), and gets wilder and deeper than any real celebrity interviews do. Or does it? Has Buscemi tricked her into delving deeper into her soul than she ever has before, or is she playing him like a piano?

That's one aspect of the film.

The other is a seemingly insatiable desire, at least with some people, to bond with and have intimacy with people in the spotlight. We think because we watch someone on the screen we have some sort of right to be close with them in private, if we get the chance. Buscemi's character, although initially professing never to have seen or even heard of Miller's films, in fact does know at least a few of them, as he later lets slip, and he does seem interested in her career, even though he'd not admit such a thing so's to spoil his "sophisticated" image. Despite a studied disdain for her, he's apparently as thrilled and intrigued as any fan would be to spend an evening with this supercelebrity. He tries--he tries all sorts of things: to get into her pants; to become her confidant; to become fatherly; to manipulate her; to stroke her; to mock her; to show utter disdain for her. Sometimes the shifts are a little clunky and strictly speaking, it's all unbelievable in the real world, but no matter. Does anyone worry about strict believability when watching Jaws?

Interview works well on these levels. Some have criticized the film for being contrived--it is; how could it not be? But this allows the story to touch these private areas. No celebrity would allow something like this to go on for so long. What's her motivation for, if not bringing him back to her place (he injures himself in a taxi accident and she gives him cold compresses for his head) then for letting him stay there so long and antagonize her? In real life, if she ever did bring him home, she'd say after fifteen minutes, "Okay, you look better. Here's your coat."

But in movies, advertising executives like Cary Grant climb Mount Rushmore (in loafers no less). You have to give it a certain amount of disbelief. What is uncovered in her loft that night--and no, it's never their clothes; we do not get cliches like the two of them slipping under the sheets--seems disarmingly personal. We do get a rollarcoaster of emotions, revelations, twists and turns--some comic, some tragic and some melodramatic, as the trajectory of a whole relationship is crammed into an evening. Towards the end I was cringing because I thought they were going to dissolve into cliches as they got closer to each other; people like this don't act that way. But then there's a lovely and delicious twist that serves as the payoff, and we realize nothing's really changed for these two. I do have to agree, however, with Amazon's critic, who says the characters are mismatched, which leads to a certain amount of predictability on one side. Or as Roger Ebert wrote with insight, most "dumb blonde" starlets really aren't as dumb as they come across, or else they wouldn't have made it so far. They may not be book-smart, but they are street-smart beyond your wildest dreams. Underestimate them at your own peril!

Interview has flaws, serious flaws. There are some over-the-top scenes that don't play very well: at one point he actually attacks her in her own apartment; later she attacks him back. She lets him see her doing blow--oh come on. Their problems get a little repetitious and puffed up--parts of it are almost like "Thirtysomething" on speed. But the conceit is such an intriguing idea--an intimate night in the private world of a supercelebrity--that we go along even though we know it's simply beyond belief. Again, isn't Jaws?

Interview was originally a Dutch movie made by filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was shot to death several years ago by a Muslim fanatic. I have not seen the Dutch version but would now like to. This American re-do, produced using many of the same people as the original, supposedly waters it down a little (or, as one review put it, "makes accommodations for American tastes") yet is still edgy in that way that only a small-budget indie film can be in the U.S. nowadays--more's the pity. The budget here must have been pocket change but it doesn't matter. Interview is two people in a room, essentially--an edgier, more irreverent, sex-charged version of My Dinner With Andre--and the time flies by. In some ways Interview is what I love most about films: put two interesting characters in a room, give them improv space (many bits were made up on the spot) and let the sparks fly. No storyboards, no special effects, no laser fights or swords and sorcery. Why can't more films be like this?

(DVD looks good but is fairly bare-bones. It includes two brief featurettes that are mildly interesting, but could have been joined together to make one longer documentary. There's also a commentary with Buscemi I've not yet had a chance to listen to.)

(Addendum two months later: finally listened to the commentary. It's okay but mostly dispensable. Where Buscemi talks about rehearsals and getting inside the characters' heads and what he changed from the Dutch original, it's interesting, but too much time is spent patting the backs of everybody who worked on this film or who has worked on a Buscemi project before. Possibly this is necessary because these people worked hard for what was essentially scale, and they did it not for the bucks or the glory but for the love; still, after he mentioned his buddy the sound effects editor who worked on eight of his other films for the fourth time I got bored.)

When it comes to Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller in "Interview", I don't think I've seen a middle aged man and a young woman that had this much chemistry since Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson in "Lost in Translation". However, if Murray and Johanson's on-screen relationship was warm and nurturing, the relationship between Buscemi's Pierre and Miller's Katya is more like a cage match.

Pierre, a self-important political journalist, is assigned to do an interview with a subject he believes to be beneath him ... Katya, a schlock TV/film actress and tabloid fixture. The two characters clash instantly, but end up continuing the "interview" all night in Katya's opulent New York loft, where the two characters ridicule, antagonize, manipulate, charm, seduce and abuse one another, both for their own career agendas and to satisfy their equally inflated egos. Steve Buscemi (clearly a talented director as well as being a great character actor) and Sienna Miller both give terrific performances playing these two complex, layered and often repugnant characters. I found the whole thing fascinating.

Toward the end of the film Pierre tells Katya "What do we both have in common? Neither of us believes in relationships. There's no equality ... there's always a winner and a loser." Watch the film to see which is which.

This film should be rented or watched on television before you decide whether to purchase a copy of it.

Both Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller (especially Miller) are among the finest contemporary actors - so it is almost always a pleasure to watch their work. However, this film consists primarily of over an hour of improbable and sophomoric dialogue between Pierre (Buscemi), a failed, morally-flawed (yet self-righteous) journalist and Katya (Miller), a self-absorbed, manipulative actress who, alternatively, pities and preys upon the unlucky Pierre. Through a series of interchanges between the characters, we learn (over and over) that they peddle fiction to their respective audiences and, at times, to themselves - but this is easy to pick up during the first ten minutes of the film. The rest of the film seems intent on exploring how many ways this basic message can be delivered and redelivered.

The majority of the interchanges between Pierre and Katya take place in Katya's bohemian apartment, so the film - especially with its minimalist camera work and limited space - often creates the feeling of an intimate stage play. This would be fine if the writing allowed the characters to expand beyond those limited confines and become interesting. However, both Miller and Buscemi (who also directed)are repeatedly forced to try to "emotionally charge" the alternatively petty and "heavy" dialogue that is aimed at showing, as Warhol would have put it, that each character is, in his or her own way, "deeply superficial": Imagine two actors forced to take a really good five-minute Tennessee Williams scene and stretch it out for over an hour. Mid-way through the film (or sooner), you will probably stop caring.

The silver lining in this otherwise forgettable film is the incredible range of Miller and Buscemi's mastery of quirky character. For me, this aspect of the film made it worth viewing - but only once.

Steve Buscemi's "Interview", timing in at 86 min. with a whopping 3 setting changes, is a suprisingly intuitive character study for being so short. Veteran Buscemi and up and comer, Siena Miller, mesh with complete ease and everything seems to work well.


Along with a very interesting screenplay, these two actors completely devulge into their characters and really compliment eachothers strong points. I really cannot emphasize how fun it is to watch these two in action. It's strange how simplistic you think the film is for the first half only to get to the second half and realize your watching a complex drama of a rare sort.


Under the radar as of late, this little indie flick is totally worth a rental. Try not to let the ending throw you off too much.


***1/2 Stars out of **** Stars

Somewhere along the line there had to be a satire about movie stars and reporters. Billy Wilder made it a classic in `Sunset Boulevard' Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition). While Steve Buscemi's 'Interview' isn't in the same category, his feature brings wit and irony front and center in an admirable fashion.

Political reporter Pierre Peters (Buscemi) and soap opera star, Katya (Sienna Miller) in 'Sex in the City-esque 'City Girls,' spar with one another in what commences as an admirable update of `Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. During the opening scene they're at a restaurant, each interrupted at key times with cell phone calls. (To sample the lack of subtlety, her cell phone goes off with the sounds of a feisty terrier.) We find out later that he's intensely irritable for being reassigned from the political beat to interviewing acting celebrities. Early on we also discover that both are forces to be reckoned with as they try to outwit one another.

Recovering from a restaurant debacle, most of the movie occurs at her place. From tempest to tranquility, the film ebbs and flows in manic/depressive cycles. Each time they start to calm down, they discover they have more in common than would have originally imagined. Chemical dependency comes to the surface as she snorts cocaine, and he continues on a typical drinking binge. Their intoxication has a sobering undertow as each tries to expose the other's vulnerability. Both are formidable players in the tirades that come to roost in her apartment.

In two keys scenes, each tries to unravel the other. She takes her video camera and starts to interview him. Similarly, he gets on her computer and does some investigating of his own. The dirt each finds about the other is enough to undo the other unless someone is clever enough to win their intense sparring match.

Cleverly scripted and devastatingly witty, 'Interview' turns the tables on assessments one makes on movies like 'Conversations with Other Women,' Conversations with Other Women which seems spurious in comparison to this intense, although sometimes irritating, contest of wills.

After watching it I found out it was a remake. I would have rather wasted my time on the original with subtitles than a revisit which was boring. Not that I think the original was any better, but at least it was a new idea.

Well you need to be in the right mood for this film.
Not much happens - physically - but the dialogue is very taut, funny, touching, frustrating and sexy.
You should then watch it a second time with the sound off, just to watch Sienna Miller move.
She captures the character beautifully.

... like a woman scorned

I knew of Steve Buscemi prior to watching Interview but I doubt I've heard of Sienna Miller before and that's too bad because, unless she's playing the part of her life as Katia (the cheap thrills movies star and darling of the tabloids) in "Inteview" I'd like to see a lot more of her, playing major parts in major future releases. Seriously.

Surprisingly watchable, "Interview" feels and plays a lot like an off- or maybe off-off-Broadway... play, and this is not meant to be a negative. It's basically 2 people, Buscemi - an unscrupulous war correspondent/political reporter turned 'fluff piece' interviewer - and Katia - the supposedly empty-headed but sexy all-over starlet - sizing each other up and playing a complex game of seduction, true and/or made-up confessions, gradually and reluctantly revealing each other their darkest secrets. Or so it seems. But not everything is the way it appears to be and, in the end, we get the well-earned and much-deserved catharsis.

Sienna Miller is simply brilliant as Katia: seductive, talented, entertaining, convincing making us to want to see more of her in more 'serious' movies. Buscemi... well... maybe he's not too convincing as a sex object but he is quite good as the cheating reporter making up sources and stories and in the process of being downgraded to the 'page six' beat. The two of them plus an abundance of alcohol, tobacco and some not so legal drugs managed to keep me interested for the movie's duration and that's all I needed on a Sunday evening.

To sum it up, "Interview" is not groundbreaking art but it's a clever script, a brilliant play by Miller and a good Buscemi performance, demonstrating that he can do more than episodic parts as target for other people's fists. A 4-star rating is fair.

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Note:

The movie is R-rated, probably for language (maybe a couple dozen f... can be heard but not much else) and for showing some copious and near continuous consumption of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. While the sexual tension is so strong, you can almost smell the pheromones, there is no nudity and nothing explicit takes place beyond some kissing and close dancing.