Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Philip Baker Hall’s Sydney finds everyone’s favourite lovable sadsack, John C. Reilly’s John Finnegan slumped outside a Nevadan diner, broke and forlorn after failing to win enough money gambling to pay for his mother’s funeral. For reasons that will perhaps only become apparent as the film progresses, Sydney takes John under his wing in order to teach him the secrets of the gambling game, although that’s seemingly mainly in the sense of tricking casinos into thinking they are high rollers and comping them rooms rather than actually winning money.
At any rate, it’s worked well enough for them to stay together for two years, forming something of a father and son bond between the calm and collected Sydney and the, to use Wikipedia’s somewhat euphemistical description, “unsophisticated and not overly intelligent” John. Complications arise when John falls in love with a waitress and part-time hooker, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Clementine. That second part of Clementine’s CV leads to one particularly unpleasant situation that a panicked John calls both Sydney and his new friend, Samuel L. Jackson’s Jimmy, a casino security worker who’s more or less wandered in off a Tarantino set. This brings up some history and further complications between Sydney and Jimmy.
I suppose the watchword here is economical, with a small set of characters and locations, and for the most part is all the stronger for it. Certainly I’m not going to knock any of the performances here, particularly surprising in the case of Paltrow, seen here as a decent actress, rather than the latter day bullshit woo-woo new age hack fraud snake oil saleswoman persona that she’s devolved into.
The characters are interesting and likable enough to pull us through what is just about the minimally viable plot, although there’s certainly some niggles. Perhaps a holdover from its expansion from Anderson’s previous short film Cigarettes & Coffee, there’s points where this does feel a bit more like a series of ideas for neat character scenes rather than a cohesive story, and while that’s certainly more apparent when, say, typing up notes for a review than on casual viewing, it’s still quite noticeable. For example, great as it is to see your boy and ours, Philip Seymour Hoffman again, that bunch of scenes have no particular plot, or arguably character utility, and even the more dramatically impactful final reel scenes between Philip Baker Hall and Samuel L. Jackson barely feel connected to the earlier situations. So, it’s not the most tightly plotted movie in existence, more of a mood piece and character exploration, but I rather suppose that’s something P.T. Anderson would admit to embracing fully in his latter works.
I suppose with the benefit of hindsight it’s not too surprising that Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut feature is good, due to, well, him being Paul Thomas Anderson and all, but I imagine this would have been a pleasant surprise had I seen this back in 1996, To be sure, it’s not up to the level of his following films, Boogie Nights et al, but it would surely make any shortlist of auspicious debuts. So, yes, perhaps not worth breaking the doors down to see, but certainly worth asking politely for the key. To the door. That this film is behind. In this analogy. For some reason. It’s unclear why. Look, I’m saying I liked this. What more do you want from me? Leave me alone.