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Send in the >> Stanley Tucci resurrects the screwball comedy with The Impostors by MATTHEW HAYS
And then there was Stanley Tucci, alone in the crowd, with his solo directorial debut, The Impostors. The film is a shockingly sweet, hilarious, warmhearted ode to the screwball comedy. Tucci stars along with Oliver Platt, as two rather talent-free aspiring actors, desperate to get ahead at any personal cost. After a series of freaky mishaps (the logic of which can only be explained within the confines of this genre), the two find themselves stowaways aboard a luxury cruise ship. A litany of disasters and near-disasters follow as the two are pursued by the ship's officers. Tucci's screenplay includes every gag imaginable; perhaps most admirable is his keen ability to take old ideas like these and somehow manage to make them seem new again. The sold-out crowd at the International Film Festival went wild for the film, cheering their delight at virtually every comic turn. Tucci, relaxing poolside the following day, was understandably elated. "It was one of the most exciting nights of my life," he enthused. "You work so hard on something and have an idea in your head, you stick to it, you do it and people then react exactly as you wanted them to. That is just impossible." With the cast suggesting everyone from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to the Marx Brothers, Tucci concedes to "stealing from whoever I can," but adds, "You don't want to copy what these people did, but rather be inspired by it. You must understand the basic tenets of the genre, to really understand what those people were doing." Despite the success of Big Night, the independent feature that Tucci co-wrote and co-directed with Campbell Scott (who has a role in The Impostors), Tucci says backing did not come easily for his solo debut. "A lot of people have tried farces and failed. People are naturally afraid of failure. Eight million is a lot of money. "This is not the kind of movie you're supposed to make as an independent filmmaker. It's a little bit taboo. I think a lot of filmmakers, particularly the younger ones, feel that they have to make a tough, gritty movie, just because they're cool. To me, an independent film is really only a film that has a clarity of vision and a single purpose and sticks to that, no matter what its topic. It must be a film that takes chances, whether it's a farce, a comedy, a tragedy or a drama." Tucci confirms what many directors before him have argued: that comedy is much trickier to direct than drama. "It's terribly different. If the timing is the least bit off it really doesn't work and falls flat on its face. And when something that's supposed to be funny doesn't work, there's nothing worse. Except armageddon--I don't mean the movie, I mean the end of the world. In that regard, it's so specific." The Impostors opens Friday, October 2
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The Toronto International Film Festival can be a harrowing place for a film critic. This year, most of the standout films were typically dark: Celebration, a Danish entry about a dysfunctional family reunion; Happiness, Todd Solondz's latest, concerning the quest for love (complete with racy pedophile subplot) and Apt Pupil, about an adolescent's sick power-tripping relationship with a Nazi war criminal.