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Review:
This was previewed at the Oak Street Cinema in Minneapolis
on 12/6/2002. The title
is a bit of a pun, and (not totally to my surprise) the film plays as a
manipulative comedy mixing “Fargo” with “Lake
Wobegan”
and “The Trouble with Harry.” Langseth (her character just out of jail) and Gilson (his
character a drifter) play an “everyman” couple on the run in a spoofy road movie filmed along the Minnesota
North Shore,
and Lake Superior.
She is trying to pick up her mother’s cremated ashes, to disperse them
into Lake Superior, where as he just starts with a
voyeuristic fixation on caskets. It goes from there. The shots of the Lake
and of Duluth Harbor,
among many others, give the film a big look. The screenwriting, though, is
what is so interesting. The characters constantly come up with little
one-liners, worded just off center to come up with a very original comic
effect. Gilson (from Heterosapiens)
looks like he could play a James Bond, but instead plays a rather barebones,
sinewy yet humble character whose comedy delivery flows way underneath actors
like Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, and Jim Carrey. (No,
Gilson would never seek a “fatter role”; he looks biologically incapable of
that—Oh, the lines about sexual competence kept coming back, as did the other
one-liners as the one about unemployment eligibility [uttered as he grovels
on the floor of the funeral parlor, almost underneath a casket], “does this
count as an interview?” Maybe the
funeral parlor lists jobs with the Minnesota
Workforce Center!) Okay, maybe Gilson’s acting style reminds
one of the male frat boy exhibitionism of an Owen Wilson (Behind Enemy
Lines, Shanghai Knights). All of the characters are
psychologically masculine (most of all the women), so there is some
explanation for the lack of any real tension. It’s all manipulation and entertainment, not
teaching. Put Gilson and Langseth together on the
stage of the Saloon (in Minneapolis)
for some erotic dancing and strip-mining; heterosapiens
are welcome there.
For more information (esp. about awards and film festival
appearances) see
http://pages.zdnet.com/byrne105/greatlakes/
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