Time Out of Mind

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Oren Moverman/Starring: Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone and Kyra Sedgwick

A film like Time Out of Mind, which deals with a homeless man of retirement age wondering the streets after being expelled from a girlfriend's apartment, could easily become an unfocused, monotonous affair if the story and characters had nowhere to go. Director Oren Moverman's film manages to avoid that narrative snare but it feels, nevertheless, like it merely meanders. That isn't necessarily bad, since the film's rhythm should mimic a homeless man's wanderings. But unfortunately its deliberate agenda becomes frustrating rather than bracingly unhurried.

Richard Gere plays George; said homeless man who is forced out of his temporary digs and into the unforgiving city streets by an unsympathetic building manager (Steve Buscemi's cameo); who rouses him from his bathtub slumber. George protests vigorously but to no avail.
Casting perennial heart-throb Richard Gere in such a role shows gumption. Making the audience ignore the fact that he isn't glamorous Gere but a homeless man presents quite a challenge.

Moverman resists exposition: who is this man? Why is he homeless? How did he come to be this way? Instead, he doles out information sparingly.

We see George become prey to what we might see as typical, homeless person behavior; spending money on booze and literally selling the clothes off his back to buy his next bottle or six-pack. As he wanders about, we also see him follow and shadow a young woman (Jena Malone), who tends bar and walks about with her boyfriend. We know immediately the young woman is his daughter--who else would she be? Her appearance in the film poses more questions about George's past.

As George spends his days looking for warm places to sleep, he decides to seek help from homeless service agency; who assign him a shelter. The questions a worker poses about his life, which he mostly refuses to answer, offer us tantalizing tid-bits of personal information.

George learns the price of avoiding the cold is fairly steep. Long lines snake from the shelter, where many like George wait for a bed and the promise of a morning meal. The shelter's rules are firmly enforced, such as mandatory 8 a.m. departures.
George keeps to himself, even when addressed by other shelter inhabitants, including a young man who seems out of place. After several nights, George meets the shelter gadfly; an intensely annoying Africa-American man named Dixon (an almost unrecognizable Ben Vereen), whose non-stop, nonsensical chatter irritates all those around him. Dixon takes to following George all over the city, trying to coax conversation and personal information out of him. George manages to resist Dixon though he can hardly keep him from following. In the course of Dixon's incessant yakking, we learn he was once a jazz pianist for Bill Evans, though the claim is highly suspect. After a sympathetic restaurant owner allows George and Dixon to use his facilities, he offers them food, which they readily accept. Seeing an old piano in the corner, George asks Dixon to play in hopes of catching him in a lie. Dixon sits before the piano, poised to play notes, only to stare silently at the keys.

George finally makes contact with his daughter Maggie, with predictable results. Less than happy to see her father, we learn that he left her to be raised by his mother-in-law; thereby missing her formative years. Maggie brushes him off, but not before giving him money. She also warns him that she may move away.

George returns to the shelter, where he has a dust-up with Dixon, and soon after, he sees his friend's mattress rolled up. The sight of the empty bed saddens him.

Another of George's street adventures involves a homeless woman named Karen (an equally unrecognizable Kyra Sedgwick), who he insists is his wife. After an evening of love-making, George finds himself alone and nearly nude, which draws the attention and the cell-phone photography of two teens.

Hoping to salvage his fractured relationship with Maggie, a pivotal meeting between the two takes place in the bar she tends. After an emotionally-fraught exchange, George leaves the bar. What happens shortly thereafter serves as the film's coda; an ending which resists resolution but allows for optimism.

I guess Moverman's film is supposed to be about a man seeking rapprochement but it's secondary purpose is to give us a sense of the plight of the homeless; how one's identity is closely tied to a place of residence and a social security card, which George pursues with no small effort.

Moverman, who knows his way around searing drama (The Messenger, The Rampart), is no stranger to grit, some of which he brings to his new film. But somehow George's plight and his failures at being a father just didn't elicit a visceral response. His situation is heartbreaking but I wasn't convinced. The problem lay partly in the casting of Richard Gere. Though I have no problem with Gere as an actor (he is quite excellent on occasion), the film can't shake his movie-star presence. Though he is homeless, I found his haircut to be fashionably coiffed. It's a case of miscasting, but kudos to Gere for taking on a challenging role.

What the audience comes away with is an interesting film with its share of fine moments but the sum total is a miss. Moverman would have us believe George is a mystery to explore, but other than expository information that is withheld, there isn't much to discover. Yes, he fouled up fatherhood and he pines for a wife but his predicament doesn't reveal anything about him or his character.

The movie is fine example of ambition overpowering execution. This is hardly a knock, for Moverman is a director who won't settle for mundane subject matter. He may have missed the mark this time, but eventual success is almost a certainty for a director of his talents.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Madden/Starring: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Maggie Smith, David Strathairn, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, Diana Hardcastle, Tina Desai, Shazad Latif, Lillete Dubey, Tamsin Greig and Richard Gere

The (mostly) merry band of senior expatriates are back in John Madden's The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which apart from an unwieldy title, offers no surprises and no departures from the safe, the pleasant and the bland. At least dementia didn't work its way into the story. Or maybe that would have helped.

One might feel like a right bastard dismissing a movie mainly conceived for an audience in their dotage; one that is so inoffensive and like one of the characters, Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), so eager to please. So I'll tread lightly because though I'm no spring chicken myself, I'm hardly the target audience for the film.

This time around, an American has come to stay. The mysterious Guy Chambers, played by Richard Gere, may or may not be a hotel inspector appraising the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for a possible American investor who Sonny and Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) hope to coax into pouring dollars into a prospective franchise in Jaipur, India. The film opens with the ever curmudgeonly Muriel and her young, Indian partner Sonny motoring on the San Diego freeway to meet said potential investor Ty Burley (David Strathairn). Sonny's overly-ingratiating manner and manic motor of a mouth almost hobble their modest proposal until Muriel intervenes. Unfortunately for Sonny and Muriel, an agreement or promise is denied them as they return to Jaipur.

Back in Jaipur, we reacquaint ourselves with the permanent fixtures of the Marigold Hotel as Sonny conducts a morning roll-call to insure none of the occupants we have come to know have passed during the night (the morning roll call also serves as a kind of running gag). Still around are Evelyn Greenslade (Judi Dench), Douglas Ainslie (Bill Nighy), the ferocious flirt Madge Hardcastle (Celia Imrie), Norman Cousins (Ronald Pickup) and Carol Parr (Diana Hardcastle) and of course Muriel, who can never answer morning roll call without a grumble. Sonny and his fiancee Sunaina (Tina Desai) manage the hotel and see to the needs of all who stay.

The film then does its best to create a story where each of the character's problems and desires make up multiple narrative threads. The situations:

• Sonny and Sunaina's marital plans are threatened by Kushal, a potential rival for the fiancee's affections, who instructs the couple on their wedding dance moves and whose purchase of another hotel jeopardizes Sonny's plans for his franchise.

• Muriel, who receives a devastating diagnosis; the details we're never made privy to. She never shares the grim news with the other hotel guests but our awareness of her condition casts a pall of gloom over the entire film.

• Evelyn, who resists Douglas' very subtle courting initiatives. The two spend the entire movie flirting then backing off one another. Evelyn also accepts a position with a big time textile exporter, which provides her an income and a sense of purpose. Douglas must contend with his estranged wife, who has returned to India to formalize their divorce.

• Madge Hardcastle, who woos everyman who doesn't wear a wedding ring. Though several wealthy Indian men serve as strong candidates, she ultimately finds her man where she least expects.

• Norman Cousins, who first believes Carol, the love of his life, is a target of an assassination attempt, which means clinging to her side at all hours of the day and tailing her, only to discover a truth less life-threatening but nevertheless unpalatable.

• Lavinia Beech (Tamsin Grieg), a newcomer to the Marigold, whose seemingly casual nature masks something more sinister. Lavinia, like some of the other occupants of the Marigold, finds romance, which is fulfilled by romancing Sonny's rival Kushal.

• And Guy Chambers, who, like Lavinia, may not be who he appears. And like Lavinia, he too is smitten by a native's charms. That he falls for Sonny's mother (Lillete Dubey) complicates life at the Marigold, for Sonny believes Guy is secretly the inspector whose assessment of the hotel will make or break his plans. While Sonny toadies up to Guy, he is also adamant about driving a preemptive wedge between his mother and the American.

It is difficult for a filmmaker to make a multi-thread, multi-character story compelling, though director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker make an earnest attempt. The operative word here is attempt, for very few of the stories are able to hold one's interest for very long. Every story proceeds according to a narrative blueprint and every conflict in the story is sorely stretched to give the illusion of dramatic arc. It becomes abundantly clear that many of the narrative threads could be resolved in minutes if the characters were simply allowed to pull their heads out of their asses. If Evelyn and Douglas simply asked one another, "Is this going to happen, or what?", we might be spared the tedium of watching two people play a coy game that carries little drama or romance. Given their ages, one might think they wouldn't want to waste precious time in a protracted state of doubt. This criticism might also apply to Guy and Sonny's mother, who play a similar, romantic cat and mouse game with few surprises.

But this is the The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, not an Alain Resnais drama, so the anticipation of character nuance is unreasonably unrealistic.

Even with little twists, which never register as shocks, it is very simple to chart every story and character. Will Sonny and Sunaina overcome premarital jealousy and strife? Will Sonny find a way to buy Kushel's hotel to secure funding for his chain? Will Norman and Carol survive their marital crisis? What will become of the other characters? Do you really need to ask?

The film has its charms: the scene where Madge and the lover she's long hoped to find make a connection as they drive through the city, ostensibly to meet one of her suitors, is one of the film's few, touching moments. I liked all the scenes with Bill Nighy and Judi Dench, in spite of being woefully underwritten. Muriel is often fun with her tart witticisms. And I like that Muriel keeps her condition a secret, which gives the film a touch of gloom to counteract its sweetness. And it isn't only Muriel who must contend with the hovering specter of death but all the denizens of the hotel, who face the formidable foe of time. The film needs a ticking clock's lurking menace because without it, The Exotic Marigold Hotel would be a treacly sweet Nirvana without end.

Which brings me to the inevitable question: will there be a Third Best? There will be if box office receipts have their say. Weekend business was very healthy. And in spite of the franchise's pretty blandness, don't we want to see Evelyn and Douglas marry? Is it worth another film?

I keep coming back because I find Smith, Nighy and Dench to be colossal talents who are always worth the admission price. If only they had more to work with.