When bad movies happen to good actors

As promised, Jan's review of The Dying Gaul.... really, really dying....

Hi MM
Saw The Dying Gaul last night - Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson & Peter Sarsgaard - how could you go wrong? Lotsa ways apparently. Sarsgaard plays a fledgling screen writer that has written a screenplay called The Dying Gaul - the story of a homosexual couple based on his own relationship with his former lover, now dead from AIDS. Scott plays the movie mogul that buys the play for one million dollars, on the condition that it is rewritten as a hetrosexual aids story. Clarkson is Scott's bored, smart, frustrated screen-writer wife. The couple form a tight relationship with Sarsgaard - Scott becomes his lover, and Clarkson begins to anonymously chat with him on gay chat sites. All sounds fairly promising, and you can't really blame the actors for the problems with this one. The pacing is off, and there are some bizarre cinematic choices, particularly to show the "chat" between Sarsgaard and Clarkson - at one point it is shown as their disembodied speaking heads. Made me think of SCTV's takes on Bergman, and I don't think that was the intention. Clunky, awkward, and boring. Have to give Sarsgaard points for the hysterical weeping breakdown he has after a sexual encounter with Scott - bizarre high pitched choking crying that was genuine enough to be uncomfortable to watch, but my praise ends there. This is apparently based on a play - can see that it could work well on the stage, but this is one reaaaaally bad adaptation.
-Jan

I love Jan's reviews
Too bad for Peter Sarsgaard
Just rent Garden State