"In-the-Body, Out-of-Body, Dead Body, Too Bawdy"
"Critics this week look at Osmosis Jones, The Others, The Deep End, and American Pie 2."
Jeffrey Overstreet | posted 8/01/2001 12:00AM
5 of 5
David Denby of The New Yorker is also impressed. "The Deep End is propelled by sex and violence, but family life is the source of the movie's strength. [The filmmakers] are very smart fellows, and they trust the camera. They have put the movie together not in big Hollywood style as a series of sensations exploding everywhere and nowhere but as a moment-by-moment immersion in the physical life of the drama. We stay completely involved. The Deep End is heartfelt and beautifully made … the best American movie of 2001."
I haven't yet caught this film, but I'll be interested to see if it actually glorifies Margaret's lawbreaking, or if it merely portrays it. How many heroes would we have if we demand that they never make a well-intentioned mistake? How many Bible stories must we reject because of characters who occasionally make a wrong move?
Side Dishes
Last week, a few critics offered Ghost World as one of the summer's best-kept secrets, a sad and touching story about the plight of disillusioned teenagers. Some critics in the religious media found the film too bleak for their liking. But Doug Cummings at Chiaroscuro grabbed hold of some meaningful threads woven through this unconventional story: "By the film's end, [the central characters] will have encountered various life choices and rejected them all for something they can barely perceive—a search for significance the world cannot offer. The movie ends on a mysterious note, suggesting faith and hope is perhaps all we have to cherish. While the characters' perpetual indecision can be grating at times, for social critique and intergenerational confusion, I'd take this over the insulting self-righteousness of American Beauty any day. The film rings far more true to the spiritual condition of American society at the beginning of the 21st century than most films in this genre."
Sneak Preview: Might the summer be saving the best for last? Phil Boatwright seems to think so. The Zucker Brothers, who brought us such sight-gag comedies as Airplane!, Top Secret, and The Naked Gun, return with Rat Race, a loose retelling of the classic farce It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And Phil Boatwright of The Dove Foundation calls it "the funniest movie I've seen since Mad World. How surprised and pleased I was that I finally found a comedy that made me laugh so hard, I nearly doubled over. I simply can't remember the last time a comedy consisted of so much hilarity."
We'll offer a full critical overview of this, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and American Outlaws next week.
Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere
Earlier Film Forum postings include these other summer movies: Princess Diaries, Rush Hour 2, Original Sin, Planet of the Apes, Jurassic Park 3, America's Sweethearts, Legally Blonde, The Score, Cats & Dogs, The Fast and the Furious, Scary Movie 2, Dr. Dolittle 2, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Kiss of the Dragon, and Shrek.
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