These are stories about how one unintentional event can
change lives forever. While they are crime movies, A Bad Day To Go Fishing and Young
Adam are not thrillers. They are not action films. They are not really
suspenseful. And in both cases we, as viewers, are entering worlds that are
very real but likely very unfamiliar.
A Bad Day To Go
Fishing takes place in a small town somewhere in South America. Since it is a Spanish and Uruguayan film, I
suspect Santa Maria is in Uruguay, which is unusual enough. When was the last time you saw a movie set in
Uruguay? When was the last time you used
Uruguay in a sentence? Critics call the
film “quirky,” which means it is odd and not meant for everyone. That, I suspect, is true. But I’ve always liked “quirky,” and I really
liked this film.
A con man, no doubt self-dubbed Prince Orsini, arrives in a
small town with one fine suit and his prize possession, a former grand champion
professional wrestler. They rent a hall
where the wrestler lifts things like tractor tires, bathtubs and other random
heavy items as an act in a show of jugglers and fire-eaters. But the real payoff is the final show of
their stay, when the former champion of the world takes on a challenger from
the village. If the challenger can stay
in the ring for three minutes, he gets a thousand dollars. The fact is the elegantly decadent Prince
doesn’t even have the thousand dollars. He flashes a few big bills wrapped
around worthless paper. If the
challenger succeeds, it would be an embarrassment and most likely punishable by
jail time. Though the wrestler is a bit past his prime and drinks heavily, he
is what he is purported to be — a former champ.
And the Prince has never had to pay off.
No doubt you are ahead of me here.
Basically the con’s bluff is called. A quality challenger is found. Behind and beneath the plot is a story about
love and loyalty, greed and desperation.
A fine, fine story, well acted and well worth your time if you can stand
a little quirk here and there.
Young Adam is a
Scot. The film takes place entirely in
Scotland, but not the Scotland that will get you on the next plane to Edinburgh
or salivating at being on golf courses where the game was invented. Most of the
time, you are in a barge. What you need
to know is that there is a barge and that there is plenty of sex. For a non-porn film, there’s an immense
amount of sex. We see more of Young Adam
(Ewan McGregor) and his women (among
them Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer) than we are entitled to,
considerably more nakedness than I saw in Nudist
Colony on the Moon, when I was a teenager.
In the case of A Bad Day To Go
Fishing, there is a misjudgment that is at the core of the drama. In Young
Adam, the drama hinges on a totally innocent, but tragic accident. What
unfolds is a matter of character or lack of it.
Though the characters don’t live in a world where the
subject of sex-addiction is likely to come up, Young Adam is a sex addict. He’s not only a boy who just can’t say “no,”
he is a boy who can always get the girl to say, “yes.” The idea that he might settle down with the “right”
woman is not part of his nature. He
travels light and can pack his bags in seconds.
But there some things you can’t escape, aren’t there? Even if you find no value in the story — and
I say that because the film is morally desolate — Swinton especially reveals a
frightening ability to inhabit an empty being.
She is, as usual, incredible here.
Drink Scotch.
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