UK/Canada/USA, R, 115 m, 1999
Directed by Paul Schrader. Stars Joseph Fiennes, Ray Liotta, Gretchen Mol, et al. 

Even if you dismiss Forever Mine as a vacuous piece of revisionism, you have to credit director Paul Schrader for having the chutzpa to dispense with the currently chic inclination towards irony in cinema. Though he runs the risk of appearing maudlin, Schrader boldly embraces the syrupy allure of the romantic melodramas from Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Age,” and refrains from what should be an itching compulsion to trash their antiquated conventions. Forever Mine is one of the most unashamedly fanciful offerings in the filmmaker’s otherwise dark oeuvre, but everything about it feels forced, and the screenplay (which Schrader penned) is exceptionally sketchy. The cinematography by John Bailey and the musical score by Angelo Badalamenti work in concert to create a rich, shimmering milieu, but it’s all for naught because the focal point is elusive and the characters involved in Schrader’s doomed love triangle are maddeningly cardboard. Some critics (of which there are precious few that actually saw the film) have described Forever Mine as “romantic noir,” but I’m loath to invoke the word “noir” when discussing the film, mostly because its director has long maintained that “film noir” is not a genre, but rather a cycle of pictures that was unique to a specific time in film history. Forever Mine certainly owes a great deal of debt to Hitchcock, though, most notably Vertigo, an often-quoted thriller that Schrader has already mined exhaustively in his screenplay for the Brain DePalma-directed Obsession. (Which was about as bald an homage to the Master’s magnum opus as DePalma’s Body Double was to Rear Window.) Schrader has described Forever Mine as a “beauty film,” and it’s his first whack at a pictorially sensual project since the criminally underrated The Comfort of Strangers. But while Forever Mine certainly offers up its fair share of opulent tapestries, the film isn’t half as compelling as Comfort. (It doesn’t haunt you the way that film did either.) There is a certain directorial distance in Forever Mine that hampers the audience from caring much about the film's characters; Schrader is so immersed in his canvas that the actors come off as mere window dressing. We don’t get wrapped up in the hero’s obsession because it feels like too much of a mechanical device in what is an essentially pointless (and very self-conscious) conceit. Forever Mine is a candied two hours of Douglas Sirk-style baloney—a disposable beach-read with a fancy cover.  

The film stars Joseph Fiennes as Alan Riply, a starry-eyed university student who works as a cabana boy at an upscale resort in early-‘70s Miami. One day, he spots a curvy blonde emerging from the water (in customary slow-motion), and he becomes hopelessly smitten. The object of his desire, Ella (Gretchen Mol), is married to an industrious NYC politico, Mark Brice (Ray Liotta), but this doesn’t stop our hero from pursuing her. Though he doesn’t have much to offer except soulful gazes and poetic sentiments, Ella succumbs to Alan’s charms, and the two plunge into a brief, yet fiery liaison right under Mark’s nose. They smooch on the beach under a blush-rose parasol (with hubby lounging only a short distance away), go for afternoon swims and dance and flirt openly in local cantinas. You’d expect these two reprobates to exercise a bit more discretion as they carry on with this illicit tryst, but it becomes almost laughable how flagrant they are with their nonstop coochy-cooing. I guess Mark’s too preoccupied with his political ambitions to take notice, but it’s hard to tell if this justifies Ella’s adulterous ways in the director’s mind. Perhaps Mark’s professional distractions played a role in Ella trolling for strange in the first place, but who’s ultimately the real victim here? A well-to-do husband who’s played for a chump by his cheating missus, or a wife who’s denied by her distant old man the kind of fawning attention that her young lover gives her? 

Alas, the Brices’ vacation soon comes to end, and Ella must bid “adieu” to her lover. But Alan soon finds that he can’t let Ella go, so he follows her back to New York City. By this time, Mark has learned of his wife’s cheating ways, and orders her not to see Alan again. Not an unreasonable request really, and seeing how restrained and understanding Mark is when he discovers Ella’s dirty little secret, you’d think she’d be happy to follow through. But, no, she resumes her affair with Alan, and Mark is compelled to do what any devoted husband would: he conspires to have the lustful lad offed. Mark’s henchmen botch the job, though, and a horribly disfigured Alan reemerges 14 years later assuming the persona of a wealthy Latino drug lord named Manuel Esquema. (The movie’s proceeding passages are told in flashbacks as Esquema reflects upon his life on an airplane while returning to the States.) Has he come back to enact revenge upon the man who tried to kill him? Or rekindle the passion he once shared with Ella?  

These questions are answered in a very obvious and unsatisfying manner, but I could’ve handled the clichéd plot mechanics if the director had bothered fashioning characters that were marginally engaging. Worse, there are too many strands of secondary business that are never carried through to any sort of resolution. For example, Esquema’s first-lieutenant, Javier (Vincent Laresca), meets a woman on the plane, and he moves to her section where they partake in some spunky, flirtatious banter. But come the next scene, Vincent is seated next to Esquema again, and the woman is never given another mention. It isn’t clear either how Javier has assumed a secondary position to Esquema when he was clearly the one with ties to major drug dealers back in their Miami days. And how exactly did Esquema wind up making powerful intercontinental political connections that snake all the way to Central America, fer crissakes? Schrader must’ve thought these details unnecessary to clarify in terms of the bigger picture, but a “beauty film” might resonate more with an audience if it has some semblance of logic in the plot.   

May 29, 2001

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.