Had my
other nephew, his sister, and her boyfriend over this afternoon to enjoy Kenneth Branagh's superb
Dead Again, which they all enjoyed very much. Watching it again was the perfect way to blow the stink off of yesterday's laughable Netflix turkey
The Woman In The Window. Whereas Joe Wright's absurd, risible Hitchcock pastiche utilized Hitch's toolkit with the delicacy and grace of a kid soaring on a high of Jolt Cola and Pixie Stix, Branagh's 1991 romantic thriller is a film with
actual romance,
actual thrills, and it has the courage to gently rib its more outré elements (Hypnosis! Reincarnation!) without ever tipping over into outright ZAZ-style parody of same. Branagh and Emma Thompson help sell the material by playing it with just the right note of florid stylization, and they showcase authentic romantic chemistry both in the film’s swoony, stylized 1940s sections as well as the “contemporary” 90s period (replete with beepers and comically large “portable” phones), and behind the camera Branagh skirts up to the edge of satire with eccentric supporting roles (Wayne Knight is a hoot as Branagh’s lisping newspaper photographer buddy, and Robin Williams – in a sharp, unbilled turn – skirts the line between comedy and malice as a disgraced former shrink who now councils Branagh’s seedy private investigator…from the meat locker of the mini-mart where he’s currently employed) and has great fun playing with the visual language of classic Hollywood thrillers. But even while having a laugh with the film’s more OTT moments (spanked along by a wonderfully sinister and insistent Patrick Doyle score, the kind he sadly rarely has the opportunity to write anymore), he nevertheless digs deeper and manages to find the genuine passion of those 40s melodramas, as well as being a superior example of that early 90s spate of adult studio thrillers that have become virtually extinct in recent years. How I’d love to see a movie with the wit, style and engrossing suspense of
Dead Again in today’s climate of overproduced F/X blah.