Posts Tagged ‘Susan Sarandon’

Maybe I Do

Director: Michael Jacobs

Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Luke Bracey, William H. Macy, Emma Roberts

Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

The tricky part about converting a theatrical play into a film, is whether the film adaptation will work and appeal to audiences. The acting has to be brilliant and the theatricality of the play has to be modified for a cinematic aesthetic.

Playwright turned screenwriter and director Michael Jacobs film Maybe I Do has a hugely talented cast including Oscar winners Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) and Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) along with Richard Gere whom Keaton reteams with after the 1977 film Looking for Mr Goodbar along with Oscar Nominee William H. Macy (Fargo) and the young lovers of the play, Michelle and Alan played respectively by Emma Roberts (Billionaire Boys Club) and Luke Bracey (Elvis, Point Break, Hacksaw Ridge).

Maybe I Do focuses on the budding relationship of Michelle and Alan as they decide whether to move onto the next phase of their lives: marriage.

However as they discuss the big leap forward, they decide that their parents should meet each other. Unbeknownst to the young lovers, their parents particularly Alan’s mother Monica, a vampish Susan Sarandon and Michelle’s father Howard played by Gere are having an affair. Simultaneously, quite by accident’s Alan’s father Sam wonderfully played by William H. Macy unknowingly meets Michelle’s mother Grace played by Diane Keaton in a movie theatre.

Unfortunately for Michael Jacobs his script is not brilliant and in a film which is primarily based on dialogue between characters, the actors are left adrift in an environment which is contrived and unconvincing and the actors are playing parts which they are not emotionally invested it. This play is set in New York, it should have been so much better.

Besides a couple of great moments between Gere and Sarandon, the rest of Maybe I Do fails partially due to the bad title and also the plot which is both unconvincing and unsophisticated. The story needed some naughty siblings to spice it up.

Unlike such brilliant films as Mike Nicol’s Closer or more recently Florian Zeller’s The Father, Maybe I Do is definitely not in that league. This is a very light romantic comedy, with some serious moments that fall flat.

For those that enjoy light but unchallenging adult comedy which tightly fits into a 90 minute running time, then catch Maybe I Do in cinemas. Maybe I Do gets a film rating of 6 out of 10, it’s fun but could have been so much better considering the calibre of talent involved.

Arbitrage

Written and Directed by Nicolas Jarecki

Starring: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Laetita Casta, Bruce Altman

Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon (Shall We Dance?) reunite in the corporate thriller Arbitrage written and directed by Nicolas Jarecki. Arbitrage is a financial term for trading in different international currencies simultaneously and taking advantage of the price difference in two or more different markets.

The central character of silver haired seducer Robert Miller superbly played by Richard Gere in a 2013 Golden Globe nominated performance, certainly does that as a duplicitous New York hedge fund manager. Not only does Miller have a lovely wife Ellen and two Ivy League educated children, but he also has a sultry and demanding French mistress, an emerging art gallery owner played by Laetitia Casta.

Arbitrage opens with Miller jetting into New York to celebrate his 60^th Birthday and what appears like a perfectly successful life goes horribly wrong in the course of the crisply edited film as Miller’s life unravels after a tragic car accident in which he seeks assistance from the paroled son of a former Miller Capital employee, Jimmy Grant played by Nate Parker(The Secret Life of Bees) in what appears as a Bonfire of the Vanities scenario.

Miller is in the process of negotiating the sale of his hedge fund company, Miller Capital to a buyer to cover the cost of a Russian copper deal which went south, a fact that he is desperately trying to keep from his CFO (Chief Financial Officer), his headstrong daughter Brooke Miller, wonderfully played by Brit Marling. When Brooke discovers the multi-million dollar discrepancy she confronts her father and in a tense scene played out in Central Park, Miller tells his daughter that he is the patriarch and that he did what was best for his family. Brooke’s glowing estimation of her father as the corporate breadwinner is surely diminished.

If audiences are expecting the rich to pay for their sins, naturally this does not happen in Arbitrage as it brilliantly portrays a powerful affluent family who is devoid of a moral core, a ruthless patriarch who will do anything to retain his wealth as well as his social status while protecting his family.

In this respect Richard Gere is superb and in the penultimate scene of the film, the confrontation between husband and wife, Gere and Sarandon do not disappoint as the power couple whose infidelities and lies are covered up by shrewd corporate dealing and malignant marital complicity.

For at the end of the day, the Millers like any extremely wealthy family who are accustomed to trading with millions of dollars on the stock market will do anything to protect their privileged position, no matter the means to which they ascended the cut-throat culture of venture capitalism as embodied by Wall Street and New York’s power elite.

Look out for a great performance by Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction) as determined detective Michael Bryer who knows that Miller is responsible for culpable homicide but cannot get past the shady hedge fund manager’s brilliant cover up.

Arbitrage is an intelligent stylish financial thriller similar to Wall Street devoid of any moral core, which makes it all the more frightening considering the long term global repercussions of the 2008 financial crisis as experienced five years later.