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ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES


LIEV SCHREIBER MAKES UP FOR "THE PERFECT COUPLE"


Slogging through the self-indulgence of uber-rich living on Nantucket writ large in The Perfect Couple, might put someone off Liev Schreiber. He's the perfect puke-inducing patriarch of a dysfunctional clan. An unlikeable philandering narcissist with a taste for firm, young flesh The poor man is also saddled with an equally unlikeable shrewish wife played with professional aplomb by Nicole Kidman. No wonder his sexual afterburners are on full blast.

But it's hard to watch as the endless parade of spoiled off-spring, unsatisfied Tik-Tok influencers, and shady wedding guests fill the screen with made-up problems.

Yep. Nothing worse than a weekend party of Liberal sloths.

And not much could have turned my opinion of the meaty-faced actor around. Across the River and Through the Trees does just that.

The movie, adapted from the last novel by Ernest Heminway to publish during his lifetime, is a sweetly sentimental last mile by Schreiber's Colonel Richard Cantwell. He's a terminally-ill, 51-year-old battle-hardened veteran of two world wars. A man determined and deserving of leaving the mortal coil on his own terms.

To do so, he journeys to Venice, the site of a horrific WWII ambush of 330 troops under Cantwell's command. A small fraction survived.

Cantwell returns to Venice. His Army doctor (The ALWAYS excellent Danny Huston) warns the Colonel. Cantwell's heart could explode at any time. Best to be in hospital.

"In hospital" is everything Cantwell is not.

Cantwell commandeers a driver, Sargent Jackson, played by the also exceptional Josh Hucherson, to take him to Venice. The young man, despite admonishments from the Colonel, sticks by his side.

And Venice, of course, provides the magic of a chance encounter with a beautiful, young Countess (the knee-weakening Matilda de Angelis). She is his last romantic lap. A genuinely decent woman who falls in love with the Colonel and takes the audience with her on a journey with but one ending.

This 48-hour denouement is a testament to the raw power of the awkwardly emotional writing of Hemingway. The book, and movie, a travelogue through the brilliant exposition of the alpha male, who lays bare the horrors of war and the lost connections wrought by the lethal conflict of mortal man.

There is no escape.

Cantwell and the Countess share a last moment, before he paddles out to go duck-hunting in the Venice Lagoons. Antique shotguns in tow, and a hand-crafted decoy at his side. Her ghost-like figure shrouded in one of the endless alleyways of the mysterious city. The narrow boat growing smaller and smaller in the distance.

And a final shotgun blast.

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