Butler's Cinema Scene

Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde

“THIRD PERSON”  My rating: C  (Opens July 11 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge and the Leawood)

137 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There are those who would argue that Paul Haggis’ “Crash” was a bucket of heavy-handed melodrama and that it only received the 2004 Oscar for best picture because the Academy was too cowardly or homophobic to give the award to “Brokeback Mountain.”

To those people I can only say this:  You haven’t seen heavy handed until you’ve sat through all two hours of Haggis’ latest, the artsy fartsy “Third Person.”

Taking the template of “Crash” — several intersecting stories centering on the same theme — Haggis has fashioned an emotionally remote, narratively confused yarn that goes through all the motions without ever delivering a payoff.

In Paris, novelist Michael (Liam Neeson) reunites with the fellow writer Anna (Olivia Wilde), with whom he is having a torrid if idiosyncratic affair (their relationship seems to be as much about baiting as boffing). Every now and then Michael gets a call from the wife he left behind (Kim Basinger, looking beaten down by life).

In New York City, perpetually woebegone Julia (Mila Kunis) is in the midst of a custody case.  Her ex (James Franco) won’t let her see their young son…because the last time Julia took care of him the kid almost suffocated in a plastic drycleaning bag. The penniless, luckless Julia is one of those people who can’t get anything right — not even showing up on time for meetings with her busy lawyer (Maria Bello). Mostly she mopes.

Mila Kunis

Meanwhile in Rome, American business spy Scott (Andrian Brody), who makes knockoffs from designs he’s snatched from Italian clothing firms, falls for a Romanian woman, Monika (Moran Atias). She feeds him a story about trying to buy her 8-year-old daughter back from the Euro-coyote who has smuggled the girl out of Romania. Scott, normally a snide jerk, decides to play the hero, wiring the States to cash in his holdings for the ransom and squaring off for a tense confrontation with the sleazy human trafficker (Venicio Marchioni).

Whereas “Crash” was all about race relations in the city of angels, “Third Person” never gets around to clearly stating its case.  It’s about illicit love (although it may be the least romantic film of the year), and about parental responsibility and malfeasance (two of the plots center on individuals whose children have died accidentally, and a third is about parent-child incest).

Adrien Brody

For that matter, it’s also about hotels, since more than half the film takes place in those institutions.

And it feels hugely misogynistic.  The women here are all helpless victims or canny manipulators — sometimes both at the same time.

Folks, this is one glum two hours at the movies. Despite the big names involved (two Oscar winners), “Third Person” is remote and chilly. The acting is OK  (I’ve got to give props to Wilde, who almost pulls off one of the worst-written women characters you’ll encounter), the photography and tech aspects first rate.

But “Third Person” just doesn’t work.

| Robert W. Butler