Cinema
Very pleased to see you
Mark Steyn
The finale of Ace Ventura — Pet Detec- tive almost drowns in pathos. The corrupt policewoman stands awkwardly in her underwear, while the 'pet dick' (as she calls him) examines her panties to see if, urn, she has her own dick to pet down there. How, you wonder, did this actress go from doing one of Hollywood's sexiest women to playing a man in drag in less than five years? From one or other of our great seats of learning — South Dakota Institute of Tricology, say — there's a pressing need for a scholarly monograph on the decline of the thinking man's pin-up. Either that or we might as well formalise the damn busi- ness and, at dinner parties in London and New York, the gentlemen can retire while the ladies get out the port and cigars and purr orgasmically over the contrasting mer- its of boyish charmers like Tom Banks, age- ing charmers like Clint Eastwood, cadaverous Brits like Hugh Grant and Daniel Day-Lewis and sophisticated bits of rough like Harvey Keitel and Gerard Depardieu. What's left for the guys? Julia Roberts? Michelle Pfeiffer? Demi Moore? Kim Basinger? Boring, tacky and, in at least two cases, both. And then Sean Young reappeared. Sean Young is not a member of the Birmingham Six shortly to be defended in court by Emma Thompson in a forthcoming biopic. Sean Young is a woman — best remem- bered for a stylish thriller called No Way Out, with Kevin Costner, a couple of years back. In a back-of-the-cab fumble, Sean, a more careless but more intense Julia Roberts, even made Kevin seem sexy, which takes some doing. Still, it was Cost- ner who became a star despite having a name composited from bits of 'cost- accountant', 'nerd' and, er, 'Kevin', with screen persona to match. Miss Young, for her troubles, gained a reputation for being `difficult' and her career went into freefall when she lost the role of Catwoman to Michelle Pfeiffer. Incidentally, it's the women in the Batman adaptions who've blown it for purists: can you really imagine millionaire playboy philanthropist orphan Bruce Wayne batting his baby-blue eyes and baby-blue hair at cheesy dames like Pfeiffer and Basinger (Vicki Vale). Any- way, Sean Young moved to the desert with an orang-outang and some boa constrictors and things got so bad she was even driven to doing theatre. Movie stars never do the- atre until they get really big, and then it's only a six-week limited season on Broad- way in Eugene O'Neill or Arthur Miller to atone for having spent the rest of the year doing Gross-Out V11. But off-off-off-off-off Broadway, Sean Young toured. On the road. In Britain. With Michael Caine.
I suppose a spoof thriller was inevitable. Third-billed to Ace Ventura and his gal, Young plays Lieutenant Einhorn, a Miami cop with a missing dolphin and no time for freelance investigators. She's best at slightly dippy chicks, desirable but goofy, like someone who's checked out of the clinic two weeks before treatment ended. She should have played the girlfriend, or even the pet detective, but the best her agent could land was the hidebound lady cop who, as things turn out, might not even be a lady. Helpfully, the soundtrack plays the theme from The Crying Game to nudge us along. Maybe that wasn't a pistol in her pocket, reasons Ace. Maybe she was pleased to see him. There's a lesson for all independent-minded actresses here: in Hollywood, it's easier to survive if you strap on a false penis.
Or perhaps it's just an extreme example of how Tom Shadyac, directing, likes to cast against type. On my own unscientific straw poll, Jim Carrey would seem to be the most unlikeable leading man of the year. Duck-quiffed, elastic-mouthed, Car- rey plays Ace like a homing pigeon on speed, flapping his wings, preening his feathers, nibbling his nuts. More than a clever dick, he's a prat. But a lot of talent- ed people come over like prats in public — Richard Branson leaps to mind. Why should we never get to see prats in leading roles? Carrey's interpretation is a small step towards greater cinema verity.
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