Double Feature: Degenerate Gamblers

I could not stand Matthew Broderick when he was young; after Election, I’m cheered whenever he waddles onto the screen. Since bulking up and slowing down, he’s become ridiculously smooth and low-key, a great comic actor. His boyish face, changing slowly from one bland expression to the next, makes for a perfect mask for the degenerate gambler he plays in Finding Amanda. There are some comedy set pieces in the film, but that’s when the film is least funny (with the exception of Steve Coogan’s first scene). The real laughs are kind of painful, but it’s funny nevertheless to watch the matter-of-fact way Broderick lies to everyone. When he develops an interest in his runaway niece Brittany Snow, a twenty-year old prostitute, it is also seems natural that there’s nothing sexual about it: Being interested in anyone is a new experience for him. The small-group swing and light tone is a perfect mask for a lonely and cutting little movie. Lose the scenes with the wacky dealer and the funny pimp and you’d have a minor gem.

In Cassandra’s Dream, the indispensible Tom Wilkinson has a small role which haunts the entire film, much as he did in Michael Clayton. Here, it’s the moment of rage his character allows himself (directed at Colin Ferrell; the audience sympathizes) that stays in the mind, and keeps the movie from drifting away. It’s noir, all right, but held at a distance, with pretty surfaces and a soundtrack by Phillip Glass and characters theatrically declaiming what’s eating them, and Woody Allen just doesn’t have the stomach for this high-style low-life stuff the way David Mamet does. Oh, listen, it’s better than I’m making it sound. Recommended.