Like a less agitated Magnolia,
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is a film about overlapping
lives, where chance intersections have larger, unforeseeable consequences.
The film takes a large subject—fate—and, through its considered
smallness, manages to deal with it in a compelling and thoughtful
way. Director Jill Sprecher (Clockwatchers) and her co-screenwriter
sister Karen Sprecher have made a gratifying, rewarding movie, philosophical
but not pedantic, detail-focused but not boring.
It doesn’t hurt
that they’ve got a really solid cast to work with: Matthew McConaughey,
John Turturro, Amy Irving, Clea DuVall and the great Alan Arkin pull
off subtle, non-showy performances, all pitched in a believable emotional
range. Thirteen Conversations is a slightly fragmented movie, with
its stories told in short vignettes. McConaughey is a privileged lawyer
working in the District Attorney’s office, a moral man who,
one night, hits someone with his car and flees the site of the accident.
Turturro plays a professor whose marriage to Irving starts to dissolve
after he’s mugged. DuVall is a hopeful house-cleaner who spends
her days in much richer people’s homes. Arkin is a claims adjuster
driven slightly crazy by an impossibly happy colleague (William Wise).
All these characters’
lives intersect throughout the course of the movie in ways that would
be unfair to give away, as Thirteen Conversations’ little surprises
are one of the movie’s pleasures. But it’s safe to say
that the filmmakers seem to be asking some interesting questions about
fate: does character determine destiny, or are lives entirely shaped
by fate? It’s to the Sprechers’ credit that the movie
never comes across as heavy-handed or self-important.
It’s also nice to
see a film with a cast of more-or-less well-known actors who really
know how to restrain themselves. No one tries any show-stopping, Oscar-pleasing
stunts. It’s an interesting, commendable style of acting, that
goes in for neither artificial naturalness nor over-stylized bravura.
While Thirteen Conversations is as contrived as any movie, the strong
ensemble cast make it feel smoothly believable.
Part of the movie’s
ease ought to be attributed to its style. Director of Photography
Dick Pope (who’s the man behind the camera for Mike Leigh films
like Secrets & Lies and Topsy-Turvy) shoots New York in a series
of subtly colour-coordinated frames, as if each set’s a painting.
Which is not to say that it looks stagey or overly artificial; it’s
just a different, landmark-free way of shooting New York that implies
that the movie could be taking place in any city (though Pope takes
real advantage of the city’s architecture). And the quiet score
by Alex Wurman helps tie the movies’ various fragments together
in a very pleasing way.
Smart, real-seeming movies
like Thirteen Conversations About One Thing don’t come along
too often. Though the movie has an awkward moment here and there,
they don’t detract from the story’s overall effectiveness
and the lingering effect of the questions it asks. This is quality
indie filmmaking: intelligent and risk-taking, and never too aggressive
in its methods. :
Thirteen Conversations
About One Thing opens Friday, Aug. 16
