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THIRD PERSON. Directed by Paul Haggis, with Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, James Franco, Olivia Wilde, Maria Bello and Kim Basinger.
REVIEW: Deborah Young
THE highly conflicted love stories of three odd couples in New York, Paris and Rome are deftly intercut in Third Person, the latest display of multiple storytelling technique from the British writer-director Paul Haggis of Crash fame.
But the drama and intensity that are his signatures are mostly missing from these vividly dramatised but uninvolving romantic crises, none of which are particularly believable. The intention is for each separate story to illuminate the others, but the bottom line is that they really don’t.
An excellent ensemble cast led by Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis and James Franco doesn’t disappoint, though they struggle to keep things afloat over a running time of more than two hours.
A fairy-tale aura pervades the two European tales, which make such blatant use of their “exotic” settings they could be part of Woody Allen’s capitals of Europe cycle. The Rome episode begins in a dank bar where Sean (Brody), a rip-off clothing designer in Italy on business, meets a beautiful Romanian gypsy (Moran Atias) dressed like a flamenco dancer.
Monika exudes haughty dignity and disdain for the American’s advances, but in the end she entangles him in the story of her 8-year-old daughter, who she says is being held hostage unless she can ransom her.
Their unlikely romance keeps falling into broad comedy, with painful scenes of Monika tearing around Rome in an ancient Fiat, then veering back into quasi-melodrama.
In New York, meanwhile, the emotionally unstable but big-hearted Julia (Kunis) fights, along with her testy lawyer (Maria Bello), for visitation rights to see her young son. She has been accused of hurting the boy, who now lives with his painter-father (Franco) and his girlfriend.
It’s a role that gives Kunis enormous room to express her talent while she struggles with her inner demons to toe the line and hold down a steady job as a hotel maid.
But it’s a pretty thankless part for Franco, the insensitive villain of the piece, whose affluent downtown loft testifies against him as a “real” artist.
The story that stands out and grounds the film is another. From his suite in a luxurious Paris hotel, writer Michael (Neeson) tries to reassess his life and talents after the double whammy of a personal tragedy and a once-successful career going down in flames.
Estranged from his wife (Kim Basinger in an affecting cameo over the phone), he brings over his knock-out young lover Anna (Olivia Wilde of Rush and Tron: Legacy) to Paris to play with for a week.
The stories, though separate, do interlock in certain surreal and rather tedious and unnecessary ways. – Reuters / Hollywood Reporter