Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Great New Wonderful / USA / 2005

2006 marked the first year that major studios began releasing films based on or around September 11. First came Paul Greengrass’ United 93, about the plane that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Later that year was Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, about two firefighters caught in the rubble at Ground Zero. And while I found both films moving, they’re prefaced by an overlooked third film: Danny Leiner’s A Great New Wonderful, which was given a small release in the later months of 2005 but was ultimately ignored. Leiner’s film prides itself on being a “romantic comedy” about a post-9/11 New York City, in which laughter and therapy take the place of heroism and mourning. The only problem is that, for a movie so devoted to investigating humanity, the characters remain incredibly distant.

Created in the mold of films like Magnolia and Short Cuts, The Great New Wonderful follows a diverse collection of New Yorkers a week before the first anniversary of September 11. Connected only by their location, Leiner and screenwriter Sam Catlin attempt to elicit apathy for their New Yorkers, even while portraying them as shallow, repressed, and even violent.

Perhaps my desire to like this film stems from it underlying similarities to the profoundly simple stories of A.M. Homes: A devoted family man (Naseeruddin Shah) has an affair at a grocery store and forgets to bring home waffles; a famed cake decorator (Maggie Gyllenhaal) rises to prominence, then falls apart when her greatest rival commits suicide; a school counselor (Stephen Colbert) suggests to the parents of a violent child that he be allowed to send their son “away”; a retired wife (Olympia Dukakis) finds herself caught in her husband’s choking routine; a psychologist (Tony Shalhoub) helps heal a patient’s suppressed, violent tendencies through jokes and thinly-veiled insults. There are no great moments of heroism—only the trickling aftermaths of small realizations. Suddenly the couple’s troublesome son is gone, his room empty; the psychiatrist is on the floor, knocked unconscious by a thrown chair; the retired woman’s husband breaks his routine and washes dishes. But where Homes stories find wealth in apparent everyday simplicity, Leiner’s film is profoundly flat. We’re never allowed to sympathize with any of the characters, even when we desperately want to. The filmmakers hope that, by including characters who’ve all suffered from 9/11, they have an ingrown and immediate sympathy, a connection.

The most bothersome aspect is, however, how little optimism can be drawn from Catlin’s characters. When Allison and David Burbage decide to “send away” their son, is that action symbolic of their coming-to-terms with the tragedy of last year or further suppression? When Emme’s rival commits suicide, does it create an awareness in her about the sudden anniversary? All stark, necessary questions that, unfortunately, must go unanswered.

by Adam Balz | Source: First Independent DVD
15 Jan 2007 2:06 PM | Submit Comment