Barney's Version

For this week's Matinee I was accompanied to my new favourite theatre (at Tinseltown) by a very special guest: my mum. And while I love her to bits and pieces she is certainly not a movie connaisseur, she goes to the theatre about once a year, usually when a new Harry Potter movie comes out...However! That being said, she occasionally lets me drag her to artsier fare, I still fondly remember us hitting up the Princess on Whyte Ave in Edmonton to see 'Transamerica'. Monday's movie gave me another great 'mum at the movies' memory. The movie opens on a cigar in an ashtray, and I leaned over to her to say 'It looks just like the cover of the book' just as the camera panned to the bottle of scotch to the left of the ashtray, and my mum says 'That's my favourite scotch!' My mum=awesome.

'Barney's Version' is a tricky movie for me to try and talk about. It's interesting in that there's a lot going on and yet at the same time there isn't really much going on. It deals, very simply, with the life of a relatively unhappy Montrealer, Barney. And when I read that line back to myself I realise that it sounds incredibly dull, however, it really isn't. While the pace is quite slow, the performances are superb, especially Paul Giamatti. Giamatti has made of a career of playing a variety of different characters, but somehow always seems to shine the most when he plays the hopeless sad-sack [see: 'Sideways'] Needless to say that odd quality shines yet again in 'Barney's Version'. He's a man who seemingly wants to be happy, but somehow seems to just make those around him as miserable as he is. Even when he's finally happily married [for the third time] to the lovely and understanding Miriam, played by the radiant Rosamund Pike, he can't help but go and mess it all up. Now this may sound overly depressing, but somehow it isn't, and I think it might be the cast of characters that surround Barney, both literally and figuratively.

For me the highlights of this supporting cast were Dustin Hoffman as Barney's retired police officer father and Scott Speedman as his junkie best friend Boogie.

Hoffman is hilarious, and as blunt and inappropriate as Barney can be, his dad can do it better. The best example of this comes from him telling old cop stories at Barney's second wedding, 'causing Barney's new, and not-so-loving father-in-law to cut him off. His last scene in the movie is also absolutely unforgettable, I'm not going to spoil it, so you'll have to take my word for it, absolute gold.

Let me preface this next paragraph: I love Scott Speedman. I have literally watched movies, just 'cause he was in them [see: the first two 'Underworld' movies]. There, now that that's out of the way, let me continue. Boogie is a would be writer, who apparently has a lot of promise, but has never finished his book, although maybe if he stayed sober for five minutes he may have. Speedman broke my heart as the always high Boogie, but even then, he still managed to have that sexy 'save-me' thing going on....but I digress.

Needless to say, I did enjoy 'Barney's Version'. In the end it's sweetness smoothes over it's rough patches, and the addled Barney at the end breaks your heart as much as he does his ex-wife's. OH! One last thing, for all you Canadian film nerds, there is an awesome cameo by none other than Denys Arcand in this flick. And if you don't know who he is shame on you!

That's all for now, sorry it took so long to get this out, four days longer than normal, but like I said before, this was a tough one for me to figure out. Until next Monday, see ya!