confessions of a dangerous mind

If you happen to have seen my last Wednesday mini-review, you will have seen that last week's DVD rental was Human Nature, which was written by Charlie Kaufman. This week's rental was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was also written by Charlie Kaufman.

I've had this happen before with the rentals - I particularly remember getting a whole bunch of films starring Jason Statham in a row, for example. I don't mind, as it can be interesting to watch films like that, but it does make me wonder how the LoveFilm system works.

Anyway, this review is meant to be about Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, so what did I think of it? Well, I thought it was okay.

One of the thing I enjoyed about the Kaufman films I've seen is the blending of realities and dreams and the messing about with perceptions. So in Being John Malkovich there's this whole thing of a messed up office space and a portal that leads into John Malkovich's head. Once in his head you perceive reality from his point of view until it eventually spits you out.

In Eternal Sunshine it's all about a guy reliving all the memories he had of a girl he fell in love with while those memories are being erased. In Adaptation you've got Kaufman himself mixing up the process of writing an adaptation of a novel and getting wrapped up in that adaptation itself.

I mention this because I was sort of hoping Confessions would also be like that. Human Nature seemed to suffer because although it was meant to be a bit like that as well, the reality it was grounded in was just plain silly itself.

In Confessions you've got a story about a TV producer who made a lot of successful game shows who then wrote an autobiography where he basically claimed to also be a CIA assassin. Surely that's ripe for all sorts of reality bending exploits, right? Is the assassination stuff a deliberate invention, or the working of a paranoid mind? Did it really happen or not?

But it's not done like that - instead, the whole thing is squarely presented as if it's real. And while that's entertaining enough, it also acts to undermine itself. I mean, let's put it this way - Chuck Barris, the guy who invented Blind Date (it was called the dating game in its original American incarnation)claims he's also assassinated 30-odd people and this is pretty much presented as being true in the film. How could that ever actually be true?

I actually read that Kauffman wasn't happy with how George Clooney (who directed it) had fiddled with the script, so I downloaded the script and gave it a read through. As is often the case with these things, it seems to me like some of the changed stuff helps and some hinders.

In the original script Chuck is a relentlessly unpleasant man and the film paints him as more strings to his bow, but some key points in the script, like him killing one of the Blind Date contestants are seriously fiddled with in ways that don't quite make sense.

Anyway, the point is I think it would have worked better if it had been more open-ended with more obvious use of is it fantasy or is reality type questions, but it does still work as is.