Topsy-Turvy
Rated R
Opens Friday
After decades of rough personal dramas, the lavishly costumed,
historically detailed and heavily musical Topsy-Turvy
is an unexpected turn for gritty Brit director Mike Leigh.
This biopic about the late-1800s British composers Gilbert
and Sullivan marks quite a change from Leigh's usual fare
of loosely scripted working-class cinema verité, but
this film includes some Leighisms if you look hard enough.
Leigh gave us the coarse and overrated family drama Secrets
& Lies and the underrated masterpiece Naked.
In Topsy he still maintains his darkly comedic and
hopelessly cynical tone, but with a significantly lighter
touch than in his previous films. The odd pacing and commentary
Leigh is known for is dropped into Topsy-Turvy, but
it loses all of its usual ferociousness when spread across
such a large canvas. Leigh has proven in the past that he's
adept at showcasing intense acting and bitterly real situations,
but here he seems lost. It makes you wonder why he made
this film at all.
It's also not clear why Topsy-Turvy has been getting
such high praise--the New York Board of Film Critics rated
it the best film of 1999. Perhaps it's because this film
is such an odd deviation and ambitious project for Leigh.
Still, as challenging as it may have been for him, for viewers
the challenge is simply to stay awake. Entertainment
Weekly's Lisa Shwarzbaum gushed about Topsy-Turvy,
writing, "You're likely to be moved to tears." Over what?
How long it is? Not that this nearly three-hour film is
hateable (we'll reserve that honor for Tim Robbins' similarly
theatrical period piece Cradle Will Rock). In fact,
it's very likable, and unlike most Leigh pictures, it's
filled with some characters you grow to adore. It is also
intelligent, dryly funny and often lavishly entertaining--if
you like Gilbert and Sullivan operas--but because of its
length and many extraneous moments, the point of it all
gets lost. Too many scenes begin promisingly enough, then
grow torpid--and oddly, some scenes work in reverse and
go from boring to fascinating. Perhaps I have been spoiled
by too many bodice-ripping period musical films (from Milos
Forman's Amadeus to Bernard Rose's Immortal Beloved),
but one leaves the theater thinking: OK, so this was a biopic
on Gilbert and Sullivan, but what else?
Topsy-Turvy chronicles the relationship between
lyricist William Schwenck Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and composer
Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) from January 1884 through
March 1885, a key period in their lives. The movie begins
in 1884 with the duo's premiere of Princess Ida,
a flop for the popular composers. A sick Sullivan crawls
out of bed to conduct the orchestra at the famed Savoy Theatre,
then promptly collapses from exhaustion and stress immediately
following the performance. The next morning, Sullivan decides
that as part of his resolutions for the New Year (including
walking more) he will stop collaborating with Gilbert and
will no longer write comic operas for the Savoy. Wishing
to create more serious music and get out of the "Topsy-Turvydom"
of his 14 comic productions with Gilbert, Sullivan is resolute.
He runs off to Europe where, as the lustier, more twinkly-eyed
of the pair, he plays with friends and intimates while Gilbert
sits at uptight dinner tables with his wife, Kitty (the
wonderful Lesley Manville). When he finally tells Gilbert
the news, the crustier writer is upset--he's working on
a new piece that, he says, is sure to be their best. But
Sullivan wants no part of yet another work involving the
same dramatic elements (there's always a magic elixir of
some kind, he complains). Things change, however, after
Kitty forces her cranky husband to accompany her to a Japanese
art exhibition, which leads to his completion of The
Mikado. And The Mikado we see way too much of.
Though the music is perfectly enjoyable, it sits roughly
against so many scenes of lengthy nothingness. It's not
that Leigh isn't saying anything (he brings up the humor
and pathos of family struggles as well as the commerce of
creativity); he just isn't saying anything new.
Too bad Leigh wasn't more of a taskmaster on this film.
As in Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes, there is something
missing amid all the period pageantry and backstage intrigue.
All the elements are in place, but the soul of the piece
is sucked dry by its surfeit of detail. Topsy should
be more fun. This is Gilbert and Sullivan, after
all.
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 26,
2000
|
