Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: It's hard to mourn or Love Liza

By Anthony Allison

You can get too much of a good thing--and Philip Seymour Hoffman is really good in small doses.

From Happiness' impotent phone-sex freak through Almost Famous' laid-back mentor Lester Bangs to 25th Hour's teacher tortured by his infatuation with student Anna Paquin, Hoffman has forged indelibly memorable characters from relatively minor roles.

But watch this consummate supporting actor being elevated to the heady heights of leading man and pretty soon you'll be secretly wishing Phil would make another hasty exit--like his fiery finale as sleazy tabloid reporter Freddy Lounds in the Red Dragon remake.

In Love Liza, Hoffman plays Wilson Joel, a Midwest computer geek mourning the unexpected death of his wife. Rejecting the well-meaning words of his mother-in-law (Kathy Bates) and an inappropriate advance by his boss (Sarah Koskoff), Joel lets his life spiral rapidly downward--especially when he discovers a letter his wife left behind, which he cannot bring himself to open.

Instead, he seeks relief by sniffing gasoline and channeling his conflicted emotions into a bizarre obsession with remote-control model planes. This unexpected subplot allows for some much-needed light relief, in the person of Jack Kehler, who plays an endearingly wacko fellow remote-control enthusiast.

Gordy Hoffman's quirky script, and the indulgent direction of Phil's old actor buddy Todd Louiso allows Hoffman to go way out on a thespian limb. The resulting portrait of intense pain and self pity is daring. But by the time Joel has stumbled through his substance abusing haze and literally crashed a big model boat meet, you'll be inwardly screaming, "Open the frickin' letter already, Phil!" When the big moment does finally come it is, of course, a huge anticlimax. Though it offers Wilson a measure of redemption, it's not exactly the transformative catharsis his character--and the audience--so desperately needs.