World Famous Comics: Bertrand Bonvoisin Beyond Therapy
Bertrand Bonvoisin Beyond Therapy
Starring: Julie Hagerty, Jeff Goldblum, Glenda Jackson, Tom Conti, Christopher Guest Directed By: Robert Altman Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, Digital Sound, NTSC Label: Starz / Anchor Bay Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: December 02, 2003 Running Time: 93 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1987-04
Believe it, it is an absolutely false farce Let's go to Paris, though it could be anywhere, in any big metropolis of the end of the 20th century, or maybe the beginning of the 21st century. Let's have a bunch of people, boys and girls, men and women, all going through therapy, I mean psychoanalytical therapy, with two doctors, a man and a woman, who are the links between them all. They all are disturbed in their sexual identification not because something is wrong with them, though the women are nymphomaniac and the men are all in between straight and gay, where the two meet, exactly where the straight line bends just before breaking. That situation has been used so often by Woody Allen that we may think Altman is making a farcical parody or a fanciful remake. But you would be wrong to think so. There would have been no reason to go to Paris then. In fact the farce is a satire, a twofold double entendre satire. The satire of all the comedies we get on the big screen that try to sound dramatic and are pathetic, those melodramatic comedies that are supposed to make us both cry and laugh and often manage none or neither. That is an easy satire, the easy level of the satire. The second level is targeting the modern middle class in western societies. They have become dead, uncreative, totally obsessed by themselves, just some dead corpses perambulating in the street that we have forgotten to bury last time they opened the gates of the cemetery. At this level the satire becomes cruel with those self-satisfied baboons we call the middle class who are essentially un-occupied, in one other word idle, and they have to spend and waste their time the same way they spend and waste the money they don't even spend any energy to make. They buy some kind of trinkets for themselves that have to be expensive and time consuming though harmless and useless. That's what psychoanalysts are all about: the circulation of a lot of money in a lot of empty time that gives you the illusion of being so busy that you get giddy and dizzy. I must say it is well done but after a while it gets to shallow to really fascinate my weary eyes.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Not Necessarly for Everyone This may not be the best film in the history of cinema, but it is one of my alltime favorites. You get the feeling that much of the dialog was mafe up as it went along and like other Robert Altman films there are frequently several people talking at once and it can be a bit difficult to follow. It doesen't matter, the whole plot is crazy start to finish and charactors are all over the top. This is not your typical romantic comedy, watch with an open mind and you may just love this!!
Decent play - plodding movie Ok, ok. I read reviews thru IMDB, etc which warned me that the '80s film version of this strange play was plodding, boring, plodding and plodding. But reviews aren't always right, right? And maybe my tastes are different (read: more sophisticated, of course) than the reviewers.
Uh, no. Reviews were spot on. This version of a wonderfully twisted play is dull, boring and boring. And boring, too. Julie Haggerty's usual characterization of an indecisive, insecure, ditzy woman is tolerable for about 15 minutes. Jeff Goldblum does some interesting things, but gets tiring by movie's half.
An interesting supporting cast adds some flavor, but ultimately fails. The slapstick moments were reminiscent of Noises Off!...another play that made a WONderful transition to film with John Ritter and Carol Burnett.
If your local theatre is performing the play, see it there instead. This play can be interpreted a million ways, and it's fun seeing what each acting company/director will do with it. But as for the movie version - SKIP IT - it's a crazy, flawed piece of writing that was not enhanced in film.
Christopher's Best I'm directing BEYOND THERAPY this summer and as delightful as the movie is nothing can take the place of the creative imagination. The movie is great. What an 80's kicker!!!!
Good actors, great director, average movie. All the ingredients were there to make this movie great, but somehow when they all mixed together the taste was bland.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
