{"id":3855,"date":"2014-09-05T23:25:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T23:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=3855"},"modified":"2015-01-12T15:14:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T15:14:27","slug":"tiff-film-review-al-pacino-in-the-humbling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=3855","title":{"rendered":"TIFF FILM REVIEW: Al Pacino in \u2018The Humbling\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TIFF<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

Barry Levinson\u2019s \u201cThe Humbling\u201d, starring Al Pacino as an actor past his prime, is an example of how a lousy novel can sometimes make a good movie.<\/p>\n

Philip Roth\u2019s pretentious and sexist 2009 novel tells of an ageing thespian\u2019s fight against the dying of the light as he discovers renewed vigour with a much younger woman. The film presents that idea seriously but braces it with much needed humour.<\/p>\n

Pacino obtained the rights to the book and he is producer and star with Barry Levinson (Oscar-winner for \u201cRain Man\u201d) as director and a script by Buck Henry (Oscar-nominated for \u201cThe Graduate\u201d and \u201cHeaven Can Wait\u201d) and Michael Zebede.<\/p>\n

Pacino plays Simon Axler, an acclaimed classical actor who has lost his passion for acting and started to confuse real life with fiction. The opening sequence illustrates part of his dilemma as he rehearses lines from \u201cAs You Like It\u201d just before his curtain call and then loses his way to the stage.<\/p>\n

Outside, in costume, he must persuade bovine young theatre staff to let him in since he\u2019s the star of the show. At the end of the production he takes a swan dive into the orchestra pit and ends up at a clinic for 28 days before he retires permanently to his country home.<\/p>\n

A cast of characters proceed to invade his life, which he describes in detail to his doctor (Dylan Baker) in daily chats via Skype, and the accumulation becomes increasingly bizarre and amusing but rendered with dry and subtle wit.<\/p>\n

Pegeen (Greta Gerwig, pictured above with Pacino), daughter of actor friends, who has had a crush on him since she was little, leaves her lesbian lover Louise (Kyra Sedgwick) to take up life with Axler. Louise pesters him with aggressive phone calls while a woman named Sybil (Nina Arlanda), whom he met in the clinic, is beguiled by his movie roles and asks him to murder her husband. Pegeen\u2019s ex-girlfriend Priscilla who is now a man called Prince (Billy Porter) also comes to visit while her parents, played by Dianne Wiest and Dan Hedaya, demand that she return home.<\/p>\n

As his affection for Pegeen grows, Axler\u2019s spending gets heavier and his agent Jerry (Charles Grodin) urges him to either do a hair product commercial or return to the Broadway stage in \u201cKing Lear\u201d. There is a buzz about his return among those keen to see if he\u2019ll do another nose-dive, Jerry explains.<\/p>\n

Scenes constantly turn sideways as the comedy emerges organically from situations including a wonderful sequence that starts off with an injured cat and ends up with Axler given a shot meant for horses that renders speech impossible when Pegeen\u2019s mother berates him.<\/p>\n

Pacino is in confident and relaxed form and his comedy timing has seldom been better. The supporting players follow his lead with Gerwig pitch perfect while pros such as Grodin, Wiest and Hedaya hit exactly the right tone.<\/p>\n

Levinson keeps things moving as he gives Pacino time to register the man\u2019s mixture of confusion and clarity aided by cinematographer Adam Jandrup\u2019s busy hand-held camera and a score by Marcello Zarvos that\u00a0knows when to be\u00a0jaunty and serene.<\/p>\n

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Millennium Films, no release date; Cast: Al Pacino, Greta Gerwig, Kyra Sedgwick, Dianne Wiest, Charles Grodin, Dan Hedaya; Director: Barry Levinson; Writers: Buck Henry, Michal Zebede based on the novel by Philip Roth; Director of photography: Adam Jandrup; Production designer: Sam Lisenco; Music: The Affair, Marcello Zarvos; Editor: Aaron Yanes; Producers: Al Pacino, Jason Sosnoff; Production: Ambi Pictures, Hammerton Productions. Not rated; running time 113 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett Barry Levinson\u2019s \u201cThe Humbling\u201d, starring Al Pacino as an actor past his prime, is an example of how a lousy novel can sometimes make a good movie. Philip Roth\u2019s pretentious and sexist 2009 novel tells of an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,1770],"tags":[2085,2086,2088,2089,2087,2071,1192],"class_list":["post-3855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-reviews","category-tiff-toronto-international-film-festival","tag-the-humbling","tag-al-pacino","tag-barry-levinson","tag-buck-henry","tag-greta-gerwig","tag-tiff","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3855"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4288,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3855\/revisions\/4288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}