Dim light through the curtains, a mess, a battered refrigerator, bottles, a rumpled bed, a hangover, a view of the open sea from the n-th floor of the hotel and a glider flying past the window wishing well to all guests of Puerto Rico. This is the morning of Paul Kemp, a journalist who arrived in San Juan in search of work. This is how the beginning of The Rum Diary looks like.
It would be simply a sin to keep silent about the long journey of this story to the wide screen. It all started back in the early 60s when the founder of gonzo journalism, Hunter Stockton Thompson, wrote his first novel. Partially autobiographical, about the harsh everyday life of a wandering journalist in the Caribbean, this novel was published only almost half a century later, in 1999.
The reason for such a long delay, according to Thompson himself, there was a refusal of several publishers to publish `` .. diary '' and the subsequent involvement of Thompson in American politics in the 60s and 70s, after his return from South America. And if not for Johnny Depp, Thompson's friend, who found the manuscript in his basement, it is still unknown when The Rum Diary would have been published, let alone a movie adaptation.
And Depp and Thompson became friends during the movieing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a movie based on another, more famous work by Stockton. And although they knew each other before, it was then that Depp, who passed the casting (and outstripped such competitors as Jack Nicholson, Dan Aykroyd and John Malkovich), lived with Thompson for several months for a greater transformation, literally absorbing his character, habits and behavior. So, again, if not for the choice of Thompson and Terry Gilliam, the director of Fear and Loathing ", it is not known how the fate of " the diary " would have been.
Returning to the movie adaptation, it was Depp who made every effort to see the light of the picture. For ten long years he persuaded Bruce Robinson, who had not movieed anything since the early 90s, to take up the production of `` ... a diary. '' And he, with the help of producer Graham King, finally gave up, starting to work. Unfortunately, Hunter Thompson himself was no longer alive by that time, and therefore the script was entirely at the mercy of Robinson. That was not slow to affect the tape itself.
A distinctive feature of Robinson's creation can be called the confusion of the narrative. The scenes are badly connected and do not think to flow into each other in any way. Instead, the story passes through the winding river of the director's inexperience. Not a trace remained of the easy and consistent narration of the book.
Almost half of the characters are deprived of screen time, the remaining half are distorted, and some, like one of the key ones - and ndash; Yemona – and completely cut out of the plot. For example, the duties of the same Yemon in caring for the only female character, Shena, are brazenly shouldered by Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). And poor Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi), a stupid but honest Swede, was turned into a complete alcoholaut.
And if Robinson had stopped at a simple distortion of characters, one could breathe a sigh of relief. But he went further. Neither Eckhart nor Ribisi nor Michael Rispoli (who got the role of Sala, Kemp's companion) could not unfold in the movie in a dignified manner. They've clearly been pushed to the edge of the narrative in Depp's all-consuming way. And the beautiful Amber Heard, despite her appearance, looked boring and uninteresting at all. From the book Chenot, except for the fatal scene in the bar, nothing remained.
As for Depp himself, not everything is so simple. In some places, he copes with the role just fine, even though his friendship with Thompson has left an imprint on his acting skills. But in the course of the movie, the familiar grimaces slipped too many times. One and the same facial expressions from comedy to comedy – this is perhaps an overkill.
In addition, Robinson also managed to make fun of Paul Kemp. You can only laugh at the unstoppable and most importantly – completely sudden and unclear where it came from in the middle of the movie, the desire of the protagonist to cut the truth. We can attribute this to an attempt to glorify Thompson himself. But the laughter quickly melts away because of the work of Robinson, who, apparently, was never able to figure out what he was focusing on - to the end. on the events taking place around the main character, or on the main character himself.
The unfinished storylines are another source of outrage. The development of most of the secondary heroes and the narrative moments associated with them rests on a huge dead end filled with rum bottles, or even goes nowhere and ends in nothing. And even an attempt to expose the vices of corruption and greed for profit failed.
that the movie is visually appealing. Beautiful Caribbean landscapes, luxury yachts and detached villas, even the slums and Sala's apartment – all this is pleasant to look at, all this does not raise any doubts about the credibility of what is happening. At times, the viewer is completely carried away to the world of the middle of the last century, in the turbulent post-war period, in the juicy years of the active growth of the US foreign policy power, against which the Americanization of Puerto Rico took place. During the years of the birth of gonzo journalism and the formation of the American empire.
In general, the `` Rum Diary '' turned out sluggish and expressionless, devoid of charm and lost its solidity on the way from letter to frame. But even apart from the book, the movie looks boring. And although the picture pleases the eye, its contents cannot boast of anything remarkable. Yes, it's not `` Fear and Loathing … '' but the absence of amphetamine-cocaine fumes could go " hellip; diary " for good. Alas, despite all its landscapes and beauty, the movie came out dull. Hunter Stockton Thompson deserves a brighter, and most importantly – a quality movie dedicated to his fond memory.
The Topic of Article: Review of the movie The Rum Diary. Longing and discontent in Puerto Rico.
Author: Jake Pinkman |
