Swept Away (2002)

This is not a good movie, not at all, not even in the Ed Wood kind of way where you love awful scenes because they are so awful. These are not awful enough. Merely dull and familiar and bad and ugh.

You can see, without trying, how it seemed like a good idea to the producers (who are like cash registers, remember). The story has a lot of winning Hollywood factors--a romance that rises against the odds and then faces a dramatic challenge before the final twists. It has a great locale, some nice foreign accents and a pretty boat. It also has Madonna, no small potato, and a potato who is willing to be an unpleasant character (with a buff body). She's a great performer on stage, and here she is trying to go beyond the MTV image. Give her credit.

She does dance, all the same, and she does some swimsuit showing off. But as an actress, she really just doesn't have the stuff, or doesn't here, with this director (the thankfully obscure Guy Ritchie). The other actors are her equal, which doesn't say too much. One exception for me was not Jeanne Tripplehorn, who is dependably able, but Elizabeth Banks as a dull-witted American girl stereotype. Quite convincing...and an obvious foil to Madonna's not-dull-witted type.

And speaking of types, the women are all in neat categories. This isn't a woman's rights movie. Yes, Madonna is strong in an abrasive way. But she becomes a "good" woman only after the man in her life "wins" her over in a the worst possible way. Some people will find this kind of force a way to work things out in a relationship, a wanting to be dominated. But others will see it as rape of one kind or another. This is a turning point in the movie and it's treated with television depth.

And speaking of television, the whole series of scenes and characters might strike some people as glib and shallow in the same way as a lot of better television, the kind of characters that get "developed" in shows like Law and Orders. But on those terms, the movie is entertaining, too, at least in spurts. If there is a missed opportunity in the dreck, it might be a chance to go totally camp. The ending has such stunning clichés, a little push into even greater exaggeration would create total hilarity. Like if the ring flies up and goes "ping" on the helicopter window and she looks--looks where? How? Ah ha! There is hope.

I think.

For years Madonna has tried to prove not only herself, but the public eye, that she can act. Unfortunately, trying too hard while failing to shed her own persona doesn't mix well.

She seems to fare better when she's NOT the star of any movie: if you watch her in supporting performances in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) or A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (1992), she actually comes off looking good. Since the story revolves on other actors, the weight of the expectation is taken off her shoulders by default.

The trouble starts when she is asked to be the star of a movie, regardless the genre. Being the focus of a plot that needs to be told in a visual way, whether it be good, mediocre or plain awful, she has to emote in ways that are akin to an actual movie performance as opposed to a video performance. This is the crucial difference between Madonna and, let's say, Bette Davis, or Meryl Streep. The latter two, even if the movie were to fail (because the visual storytelling lacked some effectiveness in having us relate to it, or because the script fell short, or because the actress per se was just not at her moment), there would be an extra something in their performances that would elevate the movie from being a complete bomb. Both Davis and Streep have had their share: Bette, having a longer career than Streep, in such fare as BUNNY O'HARE (1971) and WICKED STEPMOTHER (1989); Streep in SHE-DEVIL (1989). But at least there's been that naturalism in the way both attacked their roles that made us forget the banality of the movie and watch the performance.

Madonna, on the other hand, not being an especially gifted actress capable of really letting us in on her ability to convey a persona other than herself, fares much worse, and even in the hands of someone as Woody Allen in SHADOWS AND FOG (1992), an inferior classic, she in her pat screen time seems stilted and a little stiff, maybe even nervous, as if she were aware of the cameras and crew and just couldn't let go.

So here she tries yet once again to prove she can act in what is essentially a two-character movie. Guy Ritchie, more known for action movies filled in masculine energy, seems as adrift telling a story closer to someone of the likes of Michaelangelo Antonioni or Ingmar Bergman, who could tell a tale of two people with incredible ease. And at 89 minutes, the events which take place happen in such an unconvincing way that when the final half hour comes along and the story takes a dramatic turn, it doesn't feel sincere. From being an absolute witch with no redeeming values to suddenly being in love, this has to be the most unconvincing 180 degree turn since Fay Dunaway's Laura suddenly discovered her passion for Tommy Lee Jones in THE EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978). Equally unconvincing is Adriano Giannini's nasty turn around the middle of the movie -- it lacks any humor and feels genuinely psychopathic -- and when he gives in to Madonna's love, it's too quick to be believed. Filming this in slow music and a visual montage of lovemaking and beautiful scenery doesn't enhance or add upon this "transformation" from what would have been a story of survival between to unlikeable characters to a love story where both discover each other.

Trying to have an unsatisfying ending works against the movie as well -- it only makes it drag, bog it down, and when Madonna has to be filmed going from hope to devastation in a tight close-up, it feels she's trying too hard. Many an actress have done better in conveying so much doing so little. Hers is a performance more suited to acting styles of the late 20s, early 30s where posturing compensated as acting a part or an emotion.

Could the movie have been better? Of course. There are a myriad of ways to have filmed it in a way that would leave the viewer feeling that these people could at least hope to see each other again -- it's been done before, in OVERBOARD (1987), for example. It could have had an existential undertone in which two very different people have to rely on each other but not necessarily change (to ensure a moral tone). Much dialog and unnecessary erotic scenes could have been spared for a more "silent" film look -- as in PERSONA (1966). It could have even been something of a thriller, providing that the Giannini character have a mean streak as Billy Zane had in DEAD CALM (1989). Even if it would have been done as a sex farce it would have worked better for Madonna as the over the top, uber-control freak getting her comeuppance. But with its mean streaked humor, without at least a glimpse of her character having a softer side that hides behind a mask of bitchdom, and without really defining Giannini's own character, this becomes another misfire trying to look like a battle of the sexes.

Madonna's career in the cinema is a strange one. One could easily dismiss films like this one and "Body of Evidence" as the vanity projects of a conceited pop diva who can't act for toffee but imagines that her ability to belt out a hit tune automatically qualifies her as the next Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren. (And there are indeed several other pop divas who are labouring under that particular delusion).

And yet there is more to Madge's career than that. She is also capable of giving perfectly creditable performances in decent films like "Desperately Seeking Susan", "Who's That Girl?" and "A League of Their Own", and was particularly good in "Evita". Which makes it all the more frustrating when something as bad as "Swept Away" comes along.

When I saw the film I assumed it was a rip-off of the successful eighties screwball comedy "Overboard". The main character in "Overboard" (played by Goldie Hawn) is called Joanna Stayton; here she is Amber Leighton. I wondered whether the Stayton/Leighton rhyme was a deliberate hint by the scriptwriter that the earlier film was his inspiration. Both Joanna and Amber are the spoilt and bitchy trophy-wives of wealthy businessmen. Both women go for a cruise aboard a luxury yacht, in the course of which they manage to alienate a working-class man (here a sailor named Giuseppe) by their arrogant and unreasonable behaviour. In both cases the tables are turned by a sudden stroke of fortune, meaning that the man now has the upper hand, allowing him to take revenge on his former tormentor. And (these being romantic comedies) in both cases the ill-matched couple end up falling in love.

Since seeing the film, however, I have learnt that it is a remake of a 1974 Italian film of the same name. (At least it had the same name in English; the original Italian title was the less snappy "Travolti da un Insolito Destino nell'Azzurro Mare d'Agosto"). Adriano Giannini, who plays Amber's lover here, is the son of the actor who played the equivalent role in 1974.

Nevertheless, I still feel that comparisons between "Swept Away" and "Overboard" are illuminating, because the films, despite their similarity in theme, are very different in tone and quality, "Overboard" being far superior. Part of the reason is the way the lead characters are played. Yes, Joanna is a prize bitch, but Goldie Hawn never forgets that she is acting in a comedy and plays her with an appropriate lightness of touch, preparing us for the transformation in the later scenes when Joanna's more human side begins to come through so that, psychologically, we can accept the romance which develops between her and Kurt Russell's character. (Logically, of course, the plot of "Overboard" is quite implausible, but screwball comedies enjoy a certain immunity from the laws of logic).

Madonna, however, appears not to understand the difference between comedy and serious drama, playing Amber with a fierce earnestness far more appropriate to the latter, so that, whereas Joanna is amusingly nasty, Amber is merely hateful. In the later scenes we can never accept her as a person capable of love or affection. Beyond being the son of a famous father, Giannini has few qualifications for his role. His English is not good and he speaks his lines as though he had learnt them phonetically, without any real understanding. His main technique for expressing emotion is to rely upon a single expression, a farouche scowl, presumably indicating his discontent at his treatment by Amber. Giuseppe, incidentally, is a Communist, something which indicates how much Hollywood politics have changed since the Cold War ended. In any American film made before 1989, except perhaps Beatty's "Reds", "Communist" generally meant "fanatical enemy of democracy". In this film it means something romantically exotic and thrillingly dangerous, like some fierce but beautiful beast of prey.

The film is also badly directed (by Madonna's then husband, Guy Ritchie). It does not flow smoothly and it is visually unattractive to look at, being bathed in a harsh, glaring light. Its main flaw, however, is neither the acting nor the direction but its objectionable world view. When Amber is shipwrecked on a deserted island with Giuseppe, he realises that she is unable to find food for herself and that his skills as a fisherman now give him the upper hand. He takes advantage of their situation not only to humiliate her but also to abuse her physically and on one occasion sexually assaults her. In real life these two would probably have ended up murdering one another, but this is Hollywood, not real life, and they end up falling passionately in love. To call this misogynistic view of the relationship between the sexes "objectionable" would be an understatement. Even "Neanderthal" seems inadequate, given that Neanderthal women were by all accounts hefty creatures, built like the proverbial brick outhouse and doubtless unwilling to stand for any nonsense from their menfolk.

The critical and commercial failure of "Swept Away" finally put an end to the Material Girl's acting career. She could afford to shrug off the controversy aroused by "Body of Evidence"- a bad film, certainly, but by no means as bad as this one- on the basis of "there's no such thing as bad publicity", but when bad publicity turns to public ridicule even a confirmed attention junkie like Madonna must realise it's time to call it a day. The film swept the board at the 2002 Golden Raspberry Awards, including (inter alia) "Worst Picture", "Worst Actress" for Madge and "Worst Director" for Ritchie. (Giannini unaccountably missed out on "Worst Actor"). Never have those raspberries been so well-deserved. 1/10, only the fifth film out of more than a thousand to which I have given the minimum mark.