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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A quirky funny vintage with lots of perspective, December 31, 2003
Ross (Rufus Sewell) is about to make a fortune. He plans to sell all the collected bottles of wine bequeathed to him by his Uncle Cullen, the proceeds of which he will use to buy a manganese mine three miles west of the many-acre Satchem Farm they own. He will become financially solvent, and will be able to marry his girlfriend Kendal, who arrives on the farm with a quiet but pretty friend, Laurie, whom Cullen describes as "the girl with the young eyes but old soul." Laurie's quiet, reserved, very pretty, and has a very nice smile.The title action occurs, thanks to Uncle Cullen, and deliberately it seems, and that appears to be the end of Ross's dream to get somewhere in life, as home insurance does not cover senility. Ross feels the need to be responsible, as his hermit-like brother Paul lives in the arboretum, planting trees with a bunch of H'mong, a peaceful arboreal people hailing from Laos. Kendal has been patient, loving, and exasperated with Ross, but she's more a clear, organized person who thinks Ross should get his priorities straight. She does sympathize with him though, telling Laurie that everything Ross does is "like a perversion of the law of physics. The harder he works, the less he gets out of it." Everybody thinks Cullen has gone around the bend when he has a twenty cubit high (about twenty-eight feet) Greek pillar made of titanium and plexiglass installed in the yard overlooking the woods, and in one of the movie's highlights, proceeds to perch himself atop it a la St. Simeon, who did so in the fifth century as an ascetic practice of achieving enlightenment. Well, everybody except Laurie. He spends the second half of the film on that perch. However, Cullen is far from senile. As he tells Kendal, "life has a long experience of suffering, disappointments, and chaos, but the moment you stop squirming against the catastrophe of being alive, music flies out of the dog doo." But his most important pearls of wisdom are for his nephew, whom he wants to learn what he was put on earth for. What are his special gifts? To this, he enlists the aid of Laurie and Kendal. Other characters include Tom, a former Olympic contender whose career ended when he tripped on his shoelace and broke his ankle. He spends his days diving, his interface to the real world thus severed, and barely says a word, especially to his former flame Kendal, who turned to Ross when Tom cut off communication with her. The best performance and lines comes from Nigel Hawthorne (Cullen) hands down, playing an eccentric, idealistic, and ultimately cleverly strategic old man who's got a lot of perspective in life. As Kendal tells him, "Satchem Farm ...is a growing collection of hermetically sealed neurotics and the not so funny part is the common denominator is you." Such a far cry from the devious Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. He delivers the funniest line regarding a character: "His karma was constipated. I gave him an enema." Laurie is played by Amelia Heinle, who bears a strong resemblance to Denise Richards. Her quiet, reserved manner, warm and compassionate smile really make Cullen's description of her as the girl with "young eyes with an old soul" appropriate. It's her quiet but potent presence and role that makes her outshine Minnie Driver (Kendal), who herself is good in this movie. Keone Yong (Harrison Tang, the wine dealer) has an amusing moment where he plays guitar and sings a funny song in Chinese. His performance either bemuses or dumbfounds his listeners. Michael A Rodgers stands out as Paul, the arboreal hermit brother of Ross. As Ross says in an onscreen narration, it's "so easy to lose perspective on life. It's also not hard as you think to get your perspective back." And this quirky film with its oddballs is a ticklish but heartwarming vintage.
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~ Kirk Worthington
DVD ~ Martin Turner
DVD ~ Bill Paterson
DVD ~ Emily Woof
DVD ~ Eileen Atkins
