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Much
like Oliver Stone can’t quite seem to get his head out of
the ‘60s, director Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog) keeps
returning to 1950s Baltimore.
This city and period of time has already served as the
setting for three of his films - Diner, Tin Men
and Avalon – not to mention Levinson’s television
drama Homicide, although that was set in present-day
Baltimore. What would make a person focus that much attention on one
specific era? Who
cares? Between
the two directors, almost a dozen films in as many years that
focus on either ‘50s Baltimore or the turbulent ‘60s have
been made. And
for the most part, these movies have been spectacular,
combining to win seven Oscars out of the thirty-two
nominations they have received.
While
Stone hit a stumbling block with 1993’s Heaven &
Earth, he rebounded the following year with Natural
Born Killers, perhaps realizing that it was time for a
change. But not
Levinson. With
last year’s debacle Sphere under his belt, he returns
to ‘50s Baltimore for yet another touching,
semi-autobiographical tale of a middle-class Jewish family.
Oy vey! Granted,
Liberty Heights isn’t anywhere near as malodorous as Sphere,
but the film sure ain’t no Avalon.
Set
in 1954, Heights’ central focus is on the Kurtzman
family. They live
in the northwest section of the city, known as Liberty
Heights, in a time marred by both McCarthyism and racism.
The main character is Ben (Ben Foster), a high school
senior who also narrates the film.
He explains at the film’s beginning that his entire
neighborhood consisted of Jews and, as a result, he always
assumed as a young boy that the whole world was Jewish.
His first experience of “the other kind” (as
his mother referred to gentiles) was at a friend’s house
during an awkward lunch that consisted of white bread and
luncheon meats, both mysterious foods to the lad.
Heights
basically consists of three stories.
The first follows Ben’s blossoming friendship with a
black girl named Sylvia (Rebekah Johnson) in his homeroom
class at his recently segregated school. Both kids know that a potential romantic relationship would
be damned by both of their families, not to mention society,
but they continue to secretly see each other.
The
second story involves Ben’s father Nate (Joe Mantegna, The
Rat Pack), who runs numbers as well as a failing burlesque
theater downtown. Nate
is forced to deal with the threat of a state lottery, which
would kill his racketeering business.
He also is forced to do some creative financing after
an up-and-coming dope pusher named Little Melvin (Orlando
Jones, Mad TV) hits his number on a $50 bet.
Heights’
third and most unnecessary story concerns Ben’s older
brother Van (Adrien Brody, Summer of Sam) as he tries
to fit in with the gentile crowd to win the affections of an
icy WASP princess (model Carolyn Murphy) during a Halloween
party. The girl,
Dubbie, already has a smarmy beau with a penchant for drinking
and driving, but Van doesn’t know this until later on in the
film. Levinson
makes every gentile seem just as evil as the English were
portrayed in Luc Besson’s The Messenger.
The
trials and tribulations of Ben and Nate eventually intertwine
toward the end of the film, which makes Van’s seem really
pointless. It also makes you wonder why the mom didn’t have her own
storyline. Since
the film is supposed to be about a Jewish family, it seems
weird to exclude the matriarch.
Instead, she is reduced to yelling at her kids while
bent over at the waist. The
ending, while intended to be an emotional heart-tugger, is
instead a bit empty.
If
you take away the linear script (which Levinson also wrote),
the rest of the film is actually quite lovely.
The acting is solid all around.
The music is phenomenal, using equal parts Frank
Sinatra, James Brown and Tom Waits.
The cinematography (Christopher Doyle, Happy
Together) helps to lend a dark, colorful feel to the film,
while long-time Levinson editor Stu Linder expertly chops up
Levinson’s gorgeous shots in all of the right places.
2:07
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for adult language, mild violence and some sexual references |
