p.s. (2004)

The Topher Grace RE-view double bill!

This movie is so, so much better than I originally gave it credit for.

More specifically, Grace and his character are so much more than I gave them credit for.

Linney is one of the most talented actresses out there today, and it's very difficult to watch any one not get swallowed up by her on-screen brilliance. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that she needs someone like Sean Penn, a weighty leading man to say the least, to balance her out.

But that's not true. Annette Benning she is not. Linney knows exactly how to play every character, and her Louise is wonderfully reduced to girlhood at the very mention of her lost high school love. It's captivating and wholly realistic.

Still, if you pay attention to Grace, and I did this time around, he'll steal your heart. I think it's possible that I didn't see it before because of the real way Grace plays F. Scott. Everything F. Scott says or does is believable to the point where you start to wonder if it's dialogue or improv.

For better or worse, the lines he is dealt vary from natural to preposterous. He shows up at Louise's apartment the morning after Louise confesses who she thinks he is to talk about what she said. Peter (Gabriel Bryne) is there, and, when he asks Louise who this crazy man is, F. Scott replies, "Oh, didn't she tell you? I'm the dead guy!"
Louise (distractedly): He's an MFA applicant.
F. Scott (incredulously): An MFA applicant? Are you fucking insane?

I can't even do that exchange justice. I've watched it three times since I got the DVD in the mail, and I'm still laughing at it. Completely normal and natural way to react after what's happened between them.

On the more preposterous side, later in the same conversation Louise claims that she can't deal because "the whole thing is just to fucking mystical for [her]."
F. Scott: "You don't think this is mystical for me, too?"

Look at that line objectively. Think about it. It's hilarious. It's okay to laugh. But here's the thing - it's really hard to laugh when Grace says it. Somehow, he manages to sell it. He manages to make it look like it's appropriate and natural to swear during interviews and throw everything over his shoulder like he doesn't care if he ever picks it up again.

And he just is. He's so nervous and naive, but his has that kind of relationship naivete that makes him so much more mature than Louise can be in the situation. He seems to genuinely astonished that Louise could be interested in him that it's not hard to understand why he's so drawn to her.

I was watching the first seduction with the talk of portrait painting, and it reminded me of a passage from one of my favourite books, A Recipe for Bees. The heroine, Augusta, is remembering how her affair with Joe began, and she remarks that she opened herself up to him, but that men always remember themselves has initiating the affair. I don't think I understood what Gail Anderson-Dargatz meant until I watched this scene again. F. Scott thinks that he's seducing Louise, but he wouldn't be able to if she already given him permission. You'll see what I mean.

This movie was so much better than I remembered or gave it credit for. No longer B+ but A.