Third Person

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Paul Haggis/Starring: Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Adrian Brody, Mila Kunis, James Franco, Maria Bello, Kim Basinger, Loan Chabanol and Moran Atias

I wasn't a fan of Haggis' Oscar-winning film Crash; I found it overrated, over-cooked and underwritten and I have to say I had the same reaction to Third Person. Both boast show-offy multiple character plots which occasionally intersect but seem forced and often phony. His new film has an impressive cast and exciting locations: Rome, Paris and New York. Beautiful people in beautiful locations. Should be enough, right?

Liam Neeson plays Michael, a Pulitzer-prize winning author who is having an affair with a beautiful, younger woman named Anna (Olivia Wilde) who is both repelled by and attracted to the writer. As a writer herself, her interest in Michael isn't relegated to romance; she also seeks his authorial approbation, which he is reluctant to give after reading a short story she has submitted to him. Meanwhile, Michael is estranged from his wife Elaine (Kim Basinger) though he talks to her almost daily. She is well-aware of his affair with Anna but refuses to abandoned the marriage.

Another story is set in Rome, where a shady businessman Scott (Adrian Brody) steals fashion designs from top Italian designers for knock-offs manufactured in sweat-shops. He becomes involved with a gypsy woman (a culture known more appropriately as Roma) named Monika (Moran Atias), whose daughter is being held by Romanians. To get her daughter back, she must come up with 5,000 euros or risk her 8 year-old becoming a prostitute. Scott offers to help and in doing so, becomes hopelessly entangled in the dangerous effort to recover her daughter. As the story develops, it becomes increasingly clear Scott may be the target of an elaborate scam though he has fallen in love with Monika.

In yet another story, Mila Kunis' Julia is battling James Franco's Rick for visitation rights for her son, whose life she unintentionally imperiled when she demonstrated how he could possibly suffocate playing with a sleeping-bag. Though Rick is adamant about Julia not seeing the boy, Rick's girlfriend Sam sympathizes with the mother and eventually aids in her attempt to see him. Julia is her own worst enemy, as she can't hold a job for any period of time and is generally a mess. Assisting her legally is Theresa (Maria Bello); a tough, pragmatic lawyer who has little patience for Julia's irresponsibility.

You know Haggis will somehow have the various storylines and characters mingle in many contrived, unnatural ways. When Julia, working as a maid, scribbles an important address of where she is to meet her lawyer and Rick for a custody hearing, she accidentally leaves the paper in the hotel room, which just happens to be Michael's. He uses the same paper to write down his wife's phone number, which falls into Anna's hands then ultimately, back into Julia's later. Haggis works hard to make all this seem seamless, but like Crash, it screams overwrought plotting.

It also becomes strange when we know Julia is working in the Parisian hotel where Michael and Anna are keeping rooms though her custody hearing is in New York. This isn't a filmmaker's embarassing flub but another plot device too clever for its own good. How she can be in two places at once becomes clear later in the film, as does the other oddities in the story. What also is brought to light is why the stories all share a common theme of children in extremis.

It is Michael and Anna's story that serves as the sun in this solar system. Michael's head-games, in which Anna is a willing participant, begin to grow tiresome as the two lovers are on again, off again while his wife pleads for his return. We also learn Anna has been hiding a secret; one that offers a cliched explanation as to why she prefers older men like Michael. It comes off as cheap Freudian fallback and is an eye-roller.

Eventually everything and everyone is absorbed in the denouement which is one more Haggis-ism I couldn't endure. I guess I give him points for the attempt.

Because the stories are labored, many of the actor's performances appear over-boiled, but the the final scenes may explain that as well. Noone in the cast comes off as all that sincere though they try hard to sell their characters. Neeson, a very skilled actor, has trouble playing a convincing writer. Though his publisher informs him the quality of his writing has declined and finds his latest work unpublishable, he writes a chapter of new novel, which shamelessly co-opts his lover's personal life as content. This is all fine and good, but Michael's prose is so hackneyed, it couldn't even pose a qualitative challenge to Judith Krantz, though his publisher doesn't seem to notice.

I think Haggis would like to manage the multiple character/storylines with the skill, precision and power Altman once did in films like Nashville or Short Cuts. Unfortunately he lacks that directors unerring instinct for character and plausible, multiple plot streams.

When everything wrapped and the credits scrolled, I left the theater thinking how stunning Olivia Wilde looked, then I thought about what I needed from the A&P.