(5 of 7)
Time out! In a garish era for movies, does Brooks even have a shot with this Candygram? Its sentimental story has more cripples and victims than A Christmas Carol. And the first half an hour, a bit slow and unsure of its tone, plays like The Grinch from Greenwich Village. The film also echoes Jerry Maguire, the Tom Cruise hit that Brooks produced last year. That one had a self-obsessed hero, a sweet mother-child tandem and a media figure in trouble. All you can say about Brooks' new film, which he wrote with Mark Andrus, is that it's richer, funnier, less predictable and miles more human, with Brooks' patented quirky grace notes--dialogue you don't hear anyplace else, alas, in popular art. The film is like a party that takes a while to warm up; once you get to know the strangers there, you're bound to have a terrific, touching time. Bring hankies.
Nicholson has the most prominent part, and makes it sing wickedly. Kinnear (born two days after Hunt) proves his charming turn in Sabrina was no fluke. And as Verdell, a Brussels griffon named Jill is a magnificent actor, even stealing a big crying scene from the wily Nicholson. But Hunt is the big-screen revelation, playing against her Jamie type while locating in Carol some of that same frazzled drive. Here, Hunt had to deglamourize her image--give herself a makeunder. It's not just that Carol's hair is dark and lifelessly curly; work and worry have lent her an almost cadaverous pallor. In years of devotion to her son, she has forgotten the body language of adult affection. When a doctor speaks to her kindly, she can express her gratitude only by clumsily hugging his face. But she's great at crying: in one scene, her tears squirt perfectly down both cheeks, like the soap mechanism on windshield wipers.
Late in the film, Simon sees Carol stepping into the bathtub and is inspired to start sketching again. This drab waitress--she's so beautiful: "You're why cavemen chiseled on walls." Brooks insisted that the scene not be leering, because "these days the world is so damn foul. Before, it was, 'Tee-hee, there's a nude scene of Helen Hunt.' Now somebody freeze-frames it and sells T shirts." The actress (who had a topless love scene with Eric Stoltz in a poignant scene in the 1991 movie The Waterdance) needed no persuading. "I wanted some sense of modesty," she says, "but also for it to be clear that she was nude. Carol had gone from being clenched and covered, absolutely starved for any sense of herself and her own beauty, to really opening up."
Brooks originally wanted Holly Hunter, star of his Broadcast News, to team with Nicholson. When negotiations collapsed over money, the studio forced him to see Hunt. "I was real cranky about it," he says. "She was too young. Frankly, I saw many, if not all, of the great women. Then there was this one who was too young. And she was good. Real good." Now he--all right, like everybody--is a true Helenist. "There are lots of false idols being bowed to in Hollywood today," he says, "but Helen worships the right god. Instead of 'Please make me a movie star, please make me adorable, please make me wonderful,' she says, 'Please make me true, please make me serve the character, please make me funny.'"