Cinema
Nine Months (12, selected cinemas) Canadian Bacon (PG, selected cinemas)
Alternating positions
Mark Steyn
Now that Hugh Grant's troubles have blown over, it becomes harder than ever to see the point of Nine Months. Three months ago, the oral sex on Sunset seemed like desperate pre-publicity for the film; with hindsight, the film now seems like desperate post-publicity for the blowjob. Like Divine Brown wedged under his steering wheel, Hugh is just going through the motions, but from an awkward posi- tion: in essence, he's re-enacting Four Weddings and a Funeral sideways. In Four Weddings, he played a diffident English charmer reluctant to get married; in Nine Months, he plays a diffident English charmer reluctant to become a father. In Four Weddings, he wore a morning suit; in Nine Months does so again. In Four Wed- dings, there were funny snapshots during the closing credits; in Nine Months, like- wise. Grafting the Four Weddings decora- tions on to a story set in San Francisco and full of Americans doesn't really add up. But the theory presumably is that Four plus Nine equals Ten — the last Hollywood blockbuster to transform a likeable English chump into a mainstream American lead- ing man (Dudley Moore).
Well, we'll see. But who really deserved credit for Four Weddings' success? I'd say Number One was Richard Curtis, who structured the film brilliantly. Number Two was Mike Newell, who brought its particular milieu so sparklingly to life. How typical of Hollywood that it should shower the big bucks instead on the hap- less actor lucky enough to fall in with them. Even Andie MacDowell, who didn't seem much at the time, played her part: through her smiles and glances and giggles, Hugh became sexy by endorsement. You miss her here. Julianne Moore, so luminous in Vanya on 42nd Street and even Short Cuts, just doesn't click with Hugh: no wonder a bored hooker on Sunset seemed an attrac- tive proposition. I've mentioned before Chris Columbus's directorial style of plunk- ing the camera smack-dab in front of his actors: it pretty well demolishes Hugh's charm, and it doesn't do much for Julianne either. At times, she looks bandy-legged. As she staggers through the hospital the vast empty chasm between her knees forms itself into the true sum of the film's parts: Four plus Nine equals zero. A Canadian storekeeper wrote to the papers recently to protest the ignorance of American tourists. She was particularly irked by one customer who, after inspect- ing his change, demanded to know, 'Hey, who's the broad on the two dollar bill?' It's the Queen. Canada differs from its neigh- bour in having a Queen and a two buck bill and, if you can find an American in com- mand of both these facts, then he's excep- tionally well-informed. Michael Moore has an eye for a satiric premise and the idea of a film in which American ignorance of Canada leads to war must have seemed cute. Unfortunately, to judge from the delayed release and instant art-house obliv- ion of Canadian Bacon, for most Ameri- cans, ignorance is bliss where Canada's concerned. Moore's problem is that he isn't that interested himself. As a satirist, he has trouble going the distance. In his documen- tary Roger and Me, the momentum was sus- tained by Roger — the chief exec of General Motors — who obligingly kept dodging requests for interviews, and by the grotesques Moore stumbled upon en route — a beauty queen cheerfully indifferent to mass unemployment, a gameshow host who managed to combine anti-semitism and homophobia in one snappy Aids joke. . . In this fictional comedy, though, Moore is on his own, and inspiration doesn't go far. This time his bugaboo is US foreign policy and the military-industrial complex. Since the collapse of Communism, the President, flailing in the ratings, desperately needs a new enemy and it seems there's nobody left but Canada. And that's pretty much it: Moore can kick-start the vehicle but he can't drive it.
His Canuck jokes are the usual ones: the war is sparked by a New York Sheriff (John Candy) who leads a guerrilla raid ' across the Niagara Falls where the Yanks. . . drop litter. Canadians are such neatniks, tee hee, Trouble is, as the great EU fish stand-off demonstrated, the Canucks can plot funnier war scenarios themselves.
Still, the late John Candy has fun as a witless bozo lardbutt American. Candy was actually Canadian but he got rich because the witless bozo lardbutt Ameri- cans are such witless bozos they need a Canuck to play 'em on screen. This is also a better joke than any of Moore's.
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