Empire Fails

I remember being thoroughly disappointed with the film adaptation of Annie Proulx's novel The Shipping News. Why, oh why, I thought, did they attempt to squeeze all the details of a fine novel into a two-hour movie? And how could they possible entrust a screenwriter with a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist's words? Just imagine, I said to myself, how great this movie would have been if Proulx had written the screenplay and the director wasn't constrained by a two-hour time limit.

So you can guess just how excited I was when I found out that they were not only turning one of my favorite books into a movie, but that the screenplay would be written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel and that it would be four hours long so as to not reduce any of the novels complexity. I don't get excited about TV shows very often anymore, but ever since I first heard that HBO was filming Richard Russo's Empire Falls, and doing it "right," with Russo writing the screenplay, I couldn't wait for it to finally come out. The fact that Paul Newman was both producing and starring in it was just icing on the cake.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, HBO finally showed Empire Falls in two two-hour sections. They referred to it as "a mini-series event," but the star of the movie, Ed Harris, said we should call it a film, not a mini-series, and I agree with him, so I'm counting it as film number thirteen in my quest to see 52 new (to me) films in 2005 (besides, I'm really behind in my movie-watching goal, so every little bit helps).

I'm sorry to report that my theory on what makes a good adaptation failed its first test. Perhaps because he was given four hours to work with, Russo includes way too many of the little subplots that made his novel so quirky, but only serve to make the movie too unruly. Storytelling at a leisurely pace is fine when your reading a book, but only distracts from the major plot when done in a script. Robert Benson's screenplay and direction for Russo's novel Nobody's Fool (which also featured Newman) sped up the pace of the story without sacrificing any of its charm.

Russo also leans too heavily on voice-over narration in the film. It seems that he simply could not figure out how to transfer the non-dialog driven sections of the novel into movie dialog, so he just had his narrator read those parts. It comes off almost like listening to a book-on-tape, which doesn't make for great movie viewing. Perhaps it would have been better to have someone other than the novelist write the screenplay. And perhaps putting limits on the length of the film would have forced the screenwriter to reign in the number of story lines.

Just as disappointing as the writing was the casting for the film. When I read the novel, in my mind the lead character was someone whose loyalty (to his family and his town) made him something of a pushover. I pictured Ken Olin's thirtysomething Michael Steadman or someone like Tim Daly in the part. I absolutely would not think of Ed Harris. Harris has the build, the face, and the resume to play tough, take-no-bull characters. He tries hard to play against that character here, but you never for a minute believe that his Miles Roby would let a whole town walk all over him.

The other casting mistake was Helen Hunt as his feisty ex-wife. I'm not sure who I would cast here, but Helen Hunt didn't work. She seemed to be trying too hard. I used to love her (like way back in the Waterdance) but after Pay It Forward and Cast Away, she just annoys me. Paul Newman, however, was his usual brilliant self.

After all this criticism, it's still not that bad a film. It was shot in Maine, which I so want to visit again, and although they stumble in trying to tell it, there's still a good story being told. I think that I had built up my expectations a little too high for me to ever be completely happy with the film, but I still find myself watching parts of the movie when it's been replayed, so I couldn't have hated it that much.

Maybe one day Hollywood will figure out the perfect solution to adapting a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but Empire Falls wasn't it.

Comments

[Janie]

Helen Hunt was in Castaway for all of four minutes. What were you expecting?

Pay It Forward is such a good movie! Did you not like it at all or just Helen Hunt's performance?

[Mark]

So it only felt like she was in Cast Away for four hours?

Everything - EV-ER-REE-THING - was wrong with Pay It Forward. One of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen. After I saw that manipulative dreck I told three strangers to avoid it. When they wanted to thank me, I just told them each to tell three other strangers not to see it.

I get mad just thinking about that movie. Ugh.

[Sam]

Oh what a bummer, I tivoed Empire Falls but haven't set aside a 4 hour block of time to watch it yet. What a great book, maybe I shouldn't spoil it by watching the movie. I agree with you on the casting, I always pictured someone like Tim Robbins as Miles. It's been a while since I read the book though so I'm not sure who I'd pick for Helen Hunt's character. Who played the silver fox?

[Mark]

I think they got the Silver Fox right, they picked Dennis Farina. And it was kind of fun watching Joanne Woodward play aginst type as the evil Mrs. Whiting.