SIFF: Thoughts on the moive ‘Dying Gaul”

Well it was last Saturday when they had the first Saturday Gala showing in this year’s Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF).  I have not gotten around to really witting about the film Dying Gaul mostly because I did not like it all that much.  I might be in the minority about this because I have seem to talked to many people who say the play version and they have all said they really liked it and then I have talked to others who said that the film is true to the play.  If you live in the Seattle area and enjoy the writers Craig Lucas’s work he does have an adaptation of Three Sisters starting on June 10th at the Intiman Theatre.
Campbell Scott (who is one of my favorite films, Singles), Patricia Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard are the three principal actors in the film.  They actually had a paid separate session before the movie where they talked with Sarsgaard before the film which I did not attend.  Right before the film he was presented with a an award from the festival before the film began.  He said it was his first trip to Seattle.  Last year they showed Garden State as part of the festival.
The plot of the movie started out good and funny.  I thought it was going to be the story of Sarsgaard as a writer of a movie script about a man and the death of his life partner and how a movie studio who had bought the script was going to make him change the character dying from a man to a women to make money in Hollywood and perhaps all of the compromises that he would have to go through.  Scott played the movie producer and Clarkson played his wife.  The movie quickly moves to a story in which Scott is bi-sexual and is just as interested in the script as in the writer of the script.  His wife also seems a bit enamored with the writer and even goes as far as to seek him out in a gay chat room.  Eventually she finds out that her husband is cheating on him and to get back at her husband after some investigation she goes on line playing the persona of the writers dead lover talking with him in instant messenger.  Eventually she confronts her husband and also the writer.  I will not spoil the tragic ending but if you are familiar with the Dying Gaul statue and I guess they show it to you early in the movie you do see one of the key actors on that pose.
Overall I liked the acting but I really did not like the story.  There just was not a lot there to keep my interests.  It really slowed down and lost the humor it had early.  This should get an R rating but I am not sure to who all will show it.  I guess it might get on the same number of screens as Kinsey did which was a much better movie that Sarsgaard was in.  Go rent that or Garden State.  I liked those movies much more.
The Gala-after party was out the downtown Red Lion at about 5th and Union in their terrace lounge on the fifth floor.  This is a cool space.  I could totally see myself hanging out out on the terrace on some warm evening like tonight will be enjoying drinks and good company.  For this party they had a little jazz band playing inside with food and drinks.  Not a lot of people were outside because it was a bit cold but I spent about a half hour out there talking with my friend Sara about the film and other things.  There are lots of tables inside and out but the bar area itself was not that big.

Advertisement