Primary Colors (1998)

Primary Colors
Directed by Mike Nichols
Starring: Adrian Lester, John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Maura Tierney, Kathy Bates, Billy Bob Thornton
Grade: B+

That this particular story holds up in 2013, and continues to be replicated in films such as “The Ides of March,” is more indicative of the unchanging shallow dynamics of American politics than it is of any cinematic habit. Armando Iannucci has clearly modelled his scripts on this sort of political satire, the coarse wit of “In the Loop” perhaps the closest rival to the silly campaign trail melodrama of “Primary Colors,” which features an assemblage of actors (from John Travolta to Maura Tierney) you feel have no right to be as compatible as they are together. The biggest success of the film is that it continues to ask questions of its characters when it could just resolve to become a lesson for Adrian Lester’s lead that idealism in politics is essentially foolish. Even when ‘Colors’ makes its rashest mistake in killing off one of its characters, the refreshingly honest reaction of Travolta’s Presidential candidate offers yet more shade to a script bursting with ideas about how or whether ethics belong in this arena, and comes to an acceptance of political coda without resorting to as surly or solemn a climax as ‘March’ does. The absence of any real villains or preoccupations with blame in “Primary Colors” is a shrewd move, its only critique being of an irreparably damaged system.

Bitesize Best Actress Oscar Profiles: Emily Watson

Emily Watson in “Hilary and Jackie”

Lost the 1998 Best Actress Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love”

Grade: ***

Anand Tucker’s “Hilary and Jackie” is a bit of a whirlwind, flitting between story strands, climates, and emotive outlets like there’s no tomorrow. The result is probably harsh on a film that has a lot of inter-sibling psyche to offer, but little real sense of the best way to present it. While it has clearly modelled its depiction of musical genius on the success of 1996’s “Shine,” the film managed only a pair of Oscar nominations – for its two leading actresses Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths.

Watson – who two years previous to this nomination found herself bound by Lars Von Trier’s psychosexual commentary – is again required to exercise perceived sexual deviances as real-life Cellist and all-around hooligan Jacqueline du Pré. As her older sister Hilary announces she is getting married, Jackie launches into an advocacy of a new form of contraceptive, and announces her desire for the pair of them to live together as two ‘free and easy’ single women. They’re on altogether different pages, and while Watson displays Jackie’s calculation a little too menacingly, you at least understand how this woman has become accustomed to getting her own way. The dynamic of the two sisters is skewed towards the confident younger, but just how confident is she? Watson’s overt passion mainly stems from the physicality of her movement and presence, and you eventually feel as if she and the film are challenging the character’s supposed power assertion: how much of Jackie is a childish façade?

And yet, as a fleeting breeze of a performance, Watson showcases the kind of self-satisfied flouncing that occasionally shows up to detract from even Keira Knightley’s best performances, much too gleeful a destroyer of Hilary’s serene setup than one feels she should be. Since the film is an adaptation of Hilary du Pré’s own novel this is certainly a biased account, but there is enough material for Watson to colour the motivations of Jackie a little more. The later aspects of the film, in which she’s required to chart the woman’s violent frustration at her deterioration of health, serve as a surprisingly impacting way of telegraphing Jackie’s inherent restlessness, and perhaps typify how Watson’s robustness an as Actress often atones for the sketchy metaphysical ideas implored into her character.