my filmcritic . com
colleague norm schrager nailed session 9 , brad anderson’s throwback to spooky horror films from the 70’s .
it worked as an eerie homage without being self-referential or smugly postmodern .
genre aficionados will acknowledge the similarities in tone to stanley kubrick’s the shining and george romero’s dawn of the dead without being taken out of the engrossing narrative ( i . e . , a psychologically addled waste management team clears out an abandoned lunatic asylum ; unspeakable dread ensues ) .
in a double-whammy for 2001 , anderson shoots and ( mostly ) scores again with his eclectic riff on time-travel episodes from the twilight zone , appropriately titled happy accidents .
much like session 9 , the cards are played very close to the vest here .
is boyish , eccentric ” sam deed from dubuque , iowa ” a futuristic voyager from the year 2470 or just your run-of-the-mill psychologically disturbed nutcase let loose on the present-day streets of nyc ?
as played by wonderful character actor vincent d’onofrio ( full metal jacket ) , it’s up in the air whether or not we should accept his detailed monologues about life after the polar ice caps have melted .
the question proves to be moot , at least for a time .
even if the whole thing proves to be a creative delusion , one agrees with the character judgment passed down on him by his new girlfriend , ruby ( marisa tomei ) : ” he’s a freak , but he sure tells a good story ! ”
neurotic ruby thinks she may have found true love after a series of nightmarish dating disasters ( the junkie , the fetishist , the artist , the frenchman , etc . ) , but isn’t quite sure how to handle ” sam deed ” when he starts explaining the barcode on his arm , his elaborately constructed fake identity , his pathological fear of dogs , his ability to speak five different languages , and his mission to change a crucial moment in time that may have ramifications on time’s alternate realities .
( don’t ask . )
it’s all a bit much to take in .
ruby’s close friend gretchen ( cuz ya can’t have a love story without the token friend , though nadia dajani invests the thankless role with warmth ) chalks it up as a sexy role-playing game , but her cautious therapist ( holland taylor ) warns her that co-dependency is rearing its ugly head again and she’s in over her head with yet another doomed relationship .
who ya gonna believe ?
despite her winning an academy award , marisa tomei has always struck me as an annoying and unwelcome screen presence , one that undermines the pleasure of watching happy accidents .
her brassy new yawk attitude never really meshes with her desperate desire to appear ” cute ” to her adoring fans .
being loud and flashing a ( disingenuous ) smile does not necessarily equal ” substantial and sexy . ”
it takes more than a crack team of hair and wardrobe people to imbue her with personality .
then there’s that damned voice , which strains to be oh-so-adorable .
look , this stuff is purely subjective .
some people feel this way about richard gere , others cannot bear to watch robin williams’ hyperactive schtick .
for my money , it’s m . tomei with a bullet .
happy accidents is a romantic comedy filtered through twelve monkeys ( or , more appropriately , chris marker’s la jetee , especially with those still framed ” memory ” photographs anderson employs as a stylistic device throughout ) .
modern manhattan is filmed with an otherworldly , vaguely alien eye with a color scheme oddly reminiscent of logan’s run .
as the stranger in a strange land , d’onofrio walks slightly out-of-step , wonderfully affable but often inscrutable with his wayward expressions and bemused detachment .
this is science fiction told mainly via the power of suggestion ( though it often falls into the sci-fi trap of having entirely too much forced exposition — we want deeds , not words ! )
at least twenty minutes too long , happy accidents eventually gets around to a race-against-time scenario that puts ” sam deed ” to the ultimate test .
no movie can live in ambiguity forever , but anderson seems terminally unable to provide satisfactory conclusions to his otherwise well structured recent narratives .
( let’s pretend the loathsome and predictable next stop wonderland never happened , shall we ? )
there are also some slow , repetitive stretches as ruby and sam go over the same arguments again and again over whether or not he’s crazy .
the premise is strong enough to sustain interest , but it’s enough to throw a nod in the general direction of rod serling for wrapping up his ideas in half-hour time slots , commercials included .