State and Main Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust668 AT aol DOT com)November 26th, 2001
STATE AND MAIN (2000)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
November 25th, 2001
RATING: 3 stars
"State and Main" is smart, funny and lyrical and one wishes it were so much more. Here's a movie that has a great idea - using a Rockwellian small town as the setting for a Hollywood movie - and it comes up short in fulfilling expectations. It's as if writer-director David Mamet felt it was enough to skewer the Hollywood system - a business that has been skewered to death.
Film director Walt Price (William H. Macy) has arrived with his film crew in Waterford, Vermont to film their latest project, "The Old Mill." Problems being to surface when the old mill itself is discovered to have burnt down thirty years ago. The lead actress, Claire Wellesly (Sarah Jessica Parker), refuses to do a nude scene unless she is paid an additional 800,000 dollars. The laid-back screenwriter, Joseph White (Philip Seymour Hoffman), has writer's block, particularly since he needs to change the setting of the movie. He gets some help from a local bookstore owner, Ann Black (Rebecca Pidgeon), who falls in love with him and keeps saying to other locals, "Go Husskies!" And to top it all off, the leading actor, Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin), has a predilection for underage girls.
"State and Main" focuses on the complications that ensue in shooting a film in a small town. My favorite moment is when the hot-headed producer (David Paymer) tells Walt that he will have to do a product placement of an Internet company. "How can we do that when the story is set in 1895?," asks Walt. The payoff is finally delivered and I was all smiles when the solution was shown. The problem is that I feel Mamet did not focus as much on his targets as he should have. He neither stays long enough on the Hollywood satire or on the negotiations and deals that a film crew has to make with the locals and with the mayor (Charles Durning). A great scene could have developed with the mayor and his wife as they anxiously wait for Walt and Bob to arrive for dinner - the mayor's wife went so far as to have their wallpaper changed for the event. But there is no payoff and Mamet refuses to have any payoffs in the film. Some are more subtle than others but the whole film feels undernourished as a result.
The best subplot of the film deals with the sensible, morally correct Joseph and his developing romance with Ann. Joseph would rather spend time with Ann than work on the script. There is one moment that fuses all the elements of satire and comic relief perfectly. Joseph and Ann get locked out of the bookstore. It is raining. Joseph tries to kiss Ann but is interrupted by the local sheriff. The sheriff offers Ann an umbrella and to walk her home. Joseph is left alone at the store in the rain. It is as evocative of how a small town operates as anything I've seen in recent years. Simple lives in a simple existence where simple folks simply help others in need.
If "State and Main" had stuck to the notion of how a Hollywood film crew is out of place in a small town that feels trapped in a time warp, it could have been a winner. As it is, the film made me smile throughout and I enjoyed all the asides tossed at Hollywood. The performances are superb, as always in a Mamet film. But there are no real payoffs and the film never quite makes it as a truly biting farce or comedy. It flows smoothly and it is lyrical but it lacks weight.
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