I have a general policy of being, at best, cautious of anything staring Russell Crowe. It's not that he is an awful actor, it's just that, well, I find him irritating. And worse than that I find his choice of movies to be pretty pathetic and too often delve into earnestness, a trait that you might realize by now I despise in movies. In addition having been a reporter before, I know a bit about how things work and so am skeptical of movies about the profession, especially considering the corny scene from the trailer of Crowe's character bringing coffee to a detective and tricking him into giving information. I think that's probably an eye-roller for just about anyone, but it was cringe-worthy for me. But it was my mom's choice and, after all, it was cowritten by Tony Gilroy, whom I have written about as a pretty talented guy, and directed by Kevin Macdonald, who did The Last King of Scotland, which was an adequate movie, although honestly I appreciated it more for dramatizing the topic and giving an underappreciated Forest Whitaker the spotlight.After writing most of this I realized I should do a quick, spoiler-free plot synopsis. Essentially in both stories the beautiful female aide to an up-and-coming politician dies under suspicious circumstances and a reporter, who has a history with the politician, investigates the story only to find it leads to a much larger web of political intrigue. Because it is a mystery, I probably should not say too much more.
The movie was OK and I would generally find it too unremarkeable to write about if it were not for the source material, a 2003 6-part British miniseries of the same name, and the opportunity to compare the UK and US approach to telling the same story -- which could be source of some fascinating conversation, I hope. So as not to have this go on forever, I am going to limit this post to be about this one individual case, but should you choose to respond, feel free to bring up others that might further explore the topic. I think you noted that you also were watching a British miniseries? Although I will admit I am less inclined to watch that movie treatment than this one so I don't blame you if you can't do the direct comparison.
The most telling contrast, for me, is the approach that the two take to showing the process of journalism. In the American version, Crowe's character (they kept the characters names so I'll generally stick to actors names for clarity) is proably 10 years or so older than the counterpart in the original and is presented as the grisly vetera who knows all the tricks of the trade. He drives around in his purposefuly beat up car and lives in a shabby apartment because, well, he's a reporter and that's what real reporters do! This despite the fact that he is a veteran reporter for a Washington Post stand-in and therefore would draw a rather healthy salary. His UK counterpart is played by John Simm as a bit of a smart-ass young gun who is in a bit over his head at times. In both treatments the main character seems to be unusually close to the editor of the paper, played by a steely Helen Mirren in the US version and a more caustic, and entertaining, Bill Nighy in the miniseries. Perhaps because I am familiar with an American-style newsroom, but I found the idea of Crowe just walking in and having chats with Mirren to be highly humorous. They do a good job on the set design of putting her separate from the rest of the newsroom, but where I've worked the editor is just as far from the newsgathering process. I would imagine it is the same at the Post and if I was the city editor there, I would be a bit pissed at being represented as a chubby guy whose only role in the development of a huge story is relaying messages from Crowe to Mirren. London newspapers are generally smaller and more controlled by the head editor so the relationship was not as odd to me, especially since Nighy is much tougher on Simm.
So am I picking nits because it's a topic in which I have some familiarity? Yes, probably so. But I think it does show the tendency of American film to frequently focus more on stars and out-of-this-world characters than our counterparts across the pond. We want people, not process. That's not always a bad thing and at times results in more personal stories instead of, at times, dull procedurals. But this is a story where the procedure is important. My biggest fault with the journalism in the movie is that all of these major forces come together in the space of a few days and, partly because Crowe is all-knowing, he is able to quickly find only the right information and in the space of a day he and his partner on the story, played by Rachel McAdams (more on this later), manage to go all over town collecting clues from various places in the space of a day against a ticking deadline clock. On the contrary the miniseries has plenty of blown deadlines that create an effective tension. Because it has much more time (6 hours instead of 2), it stretches the newsgathering over what I would guess are a couple of weeks and involves finding good information in bits and pieces followed by dead ends that later, once more clues come in, make more sense. There are lies and mistakes made and, at times, questionable professional and moral conduct. A story about figuring out a deeply political mystery involves a lot of procedure and although we do get to know the main characters well, what really shines is the depth of the story in this longer format. In addition to showing the lessened focus on character, it also says a lot to me about how the Brits consume their entertainment -- much more often in these series that run as long as needed to tell a story, as opposed to the US episode-centric television and action/suspense movies. It is quite fitting that a British miniseries would become an American movie.
Aside from the journalism, there is the subtext to the two pieces. Before watching the miniseries I read a piece in the NY Times (sorry, I can't find the article online) about the movie and the process of adapting it. It brought up the subject of class as a major part of the original so I will say that going into it I was looking for that. So the observation there is not completely my own. It is much more subdued than I was expecting and one has to be looking, I found, to see the references (although I would imagine a Londoner would find it much more obvious), but looking back it could be seen as a crux from which much of the true conflict revolves around. In the miniseries the reporter is an old employee (campaign manager) or the MP instead of an old college roommate to the senator in the American version (which, by the way, seems odd to me since Crowe looks A LOT older than Ben Affleck, who is not really worth writing much about). The film focuses more on the outside political influences invovled in the situation while the miniseries is more about the political process in general, which I found makes a bit more sense as the reveals begin to happen toward the end. The film also, in what appeared to be an attempt to be more contemporary, cast McAdams (whose does well if not admirable here) as the green blogger who, although smart, has a lot to learn from Crowe's old-school journalism. Aside from an overly simplistic (and outdated) representation of newspapers in a digital age, it also does a disservice by combining two characters -- the character with the same name as McAdams is played by Kelly Macdonald as more of an equal and her character brings up rather subtle issues of sexism, while the green character is a freelancer played by James McAvoy who seems to focus on generational issues and class again (he is the son of the editor). Overall there is a tension between the characters that doesn't seem to exist in the movie, which instead seems to want to have us look to topical issues of the problems in journalism and the military-industrial complex. We don't have class issues here to the extent of the Brits so it is not quite as easy to use as a backdrop, but despite being more focused on characters the movie revealed less and the interactions just did not work. It was as if they tried to bring over too much from the miniseries but tried to still tell it in an American way.
So what does this tell me? American films in general have a much more difficult time dealing with "big issues," mainly because it treats them as "Big Issues." The mniseries was not about the newspaper industry or the influence of the energy issues. It was about the power of the political system to corrupt and efforts of intrepid reporters to break into this system, something the main reporter had already failed to do once with the main politician -- who definitely does not view the reporter as an equal. The movie makes them old bros from college who had a fight but get back together to possibly solve the case and find the bad guys, all while journalism is changing because of the Web and new corporate owners (can't forget to have the Big Ideas). This makes the movie an OK piece of entertainment with some good turns that are not always predictable (athough for the most part, don't expect a lot of surprises) and seems to move along with a rather good rhythm. It's not bad filmmaking, it's just rather bland and did not make me think much at the end. The miniseris is a different beast and kept me wishing I had more time to watch another episode most nights and yet also contemplating what it all meant afterward -- even though I had seen it after the movie, which for the most part recycles the same main plot twists -- including as I write this several weeks later. I don't think those observations say something about every American film -- there are certainly many that are challenging -- but, in general, it says a lot about the difference between how the entertainment industry creates products for its audiences in the two countries.
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