Directed by Brian De Palma (Mission: Impossible, The Untouchables, Carrie, Scarface, Mission to Mars)

Starring John Lithgow

I know I haven’t reviewed in awhile, and I realized that I would have to either quit my job or watch fewer movies to review them all, so to compromise I decided to stay at my job and simply not review all of the movies that I watch.

This movie was really entertaining. I was told about it several months ago by a stranger at a bar who overheard that I had just gone to see All Of My Sons on Broadway, which at the time was starring John Lithgow (JJ and I obviously went to see it since we are such big Third Rock fans, and we fittingly refer to it as Third Rock From All My Sons most of the time). Anyways so this Wayne guy told me that if I was a John Lithgow fan then I had to see this movie, and I now know what he meant. Lithgow, who plays a person suffering from multiple personality disorder, as up to four distinct characters to play throughout the film. Often characters in conversation with eachother. I have to say he did a great job here.

I don’t want to give too much more of the story away because, other than Lithgow’s performance, the best part of the movie is the twists and turns of the plot and the Hitchcockian suspense that De Palma builds.*Note: I reject any claims of pretensiousness aimed at my use of the term “Hitchcockian”, because several sequences of the film are lifted directly from Psycho.

The one other part of the movie that impressed me is the way that DePalma directs dreams, hallucinations, and reality without any stylistic choices distinguishing between the three, often using devices that traditionally denote a sequence as fantasy to manipulate the viewers expectations and leave them questioning what is real and what is not. Of course, as Scorsese says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Fantasy is often more real than reality.” Essentially he is saying why shoot reality and fantasy differently when the characters experiencing these things cannot tell the difference themselves. (I also discussed this in my King of Comedy entry)

Rent It. This is definitely one of the “good” De Palma movies, not one of the Mission To Mars/Black Dhalia De Palmas.