Bob's Cinema Diary: 1/10/20 -- Three Christs and Song of Names

Three Christs

Three Christs focuses on a psychiatrist who in the 1950s studied three paranoid schizophrenics, each of whom believed that he was Jesus. Although Three Christs derives from a true story, the movie winds up feeling contrived and unconvincing. A miscast Richard Gere portrays Dr. Alan Stone, a psychiatrist who in the picture's early going arrives at a Michigan state hospital to conduct his study. Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins and Bradley Whitford portray Dr. Stone’s patients, men who have convinced themselves that they are the true Christ. Stone isolates the trio of faux Christs from other patients to determine if they can get along with one another. Stone wonders: If one Jesus is confronted with another, would one of them have to admit that he's deluded. Everyone, of course, knows that the New Testament tells the story of a single Jesus. Director Jon Avnet needed a villain. The closest he comes is Dr. Orbis (Kevin Pollack), the psychiatrist who heads the hospital and who seems to value procedural correctness over sensitive treatment. Charlotte Hope plays Becky, the young woman who becomes Dr. Stone’s research assistant. Julianna Margulies appears as Stone’s wife, a character who adds little to the story. Of the three Christs, Dinklage gives the most interesting performance. Eloquent and nearly regal in bearing, his Canadian-born Joseph Cassel thinks that he should be sent to England. Tragedy looms as Avnet presents Stone as a man who sides with his patients in a way that the hospital establishment mostly mistrusts. He's adamant in his opposition to electroshock therapy, for example. Beneath all the drama, we find a romanticized notion about how the patients help to cure the doctor of his heretofore unacknowledged delusions. The point seems forced, a notion more accepted than discovered by a movie that flirts with intriguing issues but feels like it might have benefited from the intensifying claustrophobia of the stage.

The Song of Names

Based on a novel by classical music critic Norman Lebrecht, The Song of Names aims for high seriousness but fades from the screen without making the expected impact. The story centers on a gifted Jewish violinist who's played at various ages by Luke Doyle, Jonah Hauer-King and Clive Owen. Sent to England from Poland to escape the Nazis, young Dovidl is raised by an English family that goes to great lengths to respect his Jewish heritage. After a rocky start, the supremely confident Dovidl makes friends with Martin, the son of the man who agrees to shelter Dovidl while nurturing the youngster's musical talents. As the two age, Martin develops a belief in Dovidl and promotes his career. On the eve an important concert, the now-grown Dovidl vanishes. After 35 years, Martin (played as an adult by Tim Roth) tries to find his former friend. Director Francois Girard uses Dovidl's disappearance as a source of mystery while the movie shifts between the war and post-war years and the 1980s. Little catches fire with Dovidl's story becoming secondary to Martin's search. The result: A movie that tries to deal with the Holocaust, musical genius and personal transformation fails to plumb any of those areas with sufficient depth. The historical backdrop and the music provide a bit of elevation, but the movie strikes only a minor chord.

A new take on an old character

It boasts a beautifully mounted production, but this telling of Hamlet's story from Ophelia's point-of-view falls short.

Say this: director Claire McCarthy has made a beautifully appointed and carefully staged Ophelia, a lush adaptation of a Lisa Klein novel that tells Hamlet's story from Ophelia's point of view.

In McCarthy's Shakespearean inside-outing, Star Wars star Daisy Ridley portrays Ophelia, who -- in this version -- emerges a strong figure from the classic story about a Danish prince who can't make up his mind whether to be or not to be. But is Ophelia anything more than a gimmicky costume drama? That's the question.

The answer: Not entirely.

Early on, Queen Gertrude (Namoi Watts) selects Ophelia as one of her ladies-in-waiting. Before Hamlet (George MacKay) prepares to leave Elsinore, he begins flirting with Ophelia; it's clear that he's smitten.

To arrive where she wants to go -- the emergence of Ophelia as an independent force -- MacKay must alter the original story. Among other things, we learn that Gertrude has a long-lost sister who's also a potion-dispensing witch (also played by Watts). The witch becomes instrumental in the plot -- albeit not in predictable ways.

Meanwhile, Gertrude fights the temptation to start an affair with the king's brother (Clive Owen). Owen's Claudius -- in the midst of what looks like a series of epic bad hair days -- has designs on the throne. Once the king has been dispatched, he takes Gertrude as his queen.

The character of Ophelia has been modernized in ways that can seem a bit too on-the-nose. She can read and knows how to stand up for herself. She cautions the brooding Hamlet not to toy with her affections. Ophelia represents the antithesis of courtly hypocrisy; a straightforward young woman, she refuses to play games.

Tom Felton, of the Harry Potter movies, portrays Laertes; Dominic Mafham plays Polonius; and Devon Terrell appears as Horatio. All are more or less relegated to secondary figures but are made more interesting by comparing their portrayals to what we might have seen in past productions of Hamlet.

Shot in the Czech Republic, Ophelia looks great but its beauty can't overcome the movie's two big problems. Half the time, you may find yourself trying to connect the events on screen to those you remember from Shakespeare's play.

The other problem: The story seems to have been engineered as much as written. I'd have preferred to have seen the chips (not to mention the story's numerous corpses) land where they might have fallen. Instead, I was distracted by the strain of the plot manipulations that bring Ophelia's story into focus and sometimes make the characters feel more contrived than real.