DVD of the Week
# 7 – The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)You probably know the twist, but don't let that put you off. After all, the big reveal is at the midway point – there are plenty of surprises still to come. I just thought we'd get that out of the way.
From the opening blast of Percy Sledge's 'When A Man Loves a Woman' – the camera panning round to reveal a funfair in full swing –
The Crying Game does things differently. It's a film with an other-worldly atmosphere, where frequent jolts in mood and tempo make perfect sense and love transcends all.
It's filled with characters who are troubled, duplicitous and constantly playing games. But for a film that constantly yanks at the rug beneath our feet, it never feels gimmicky or shallow, with twists for twists' sake.
Stephen Rea is an IRA activist who helps kidnap British soldier Forest Whitaker (judging from his accent, if he is from London, he went there from Johannesburg). Forced to babysit his adversary in a woodland hideout, Rea strikes up an unlikely friendship with the talkative quarry.
The Crying Game is a consistently excellent film with a singular atmosphere that makes every sequence something special, but these early scenes are particularly powerful. Rea's dishevelled gunman displays a tenderness and humanism that's unexpected and heart-rending, whether chiding himself ("I'm not good for much", he says resignedly at one point) or quoting verse to the man he's been chosen to kill ("When I was a child, I thought as a child...")
Later, he travels to London to seek out Whitaker's lover (Jaye Davidson), a cabaret singer with a secret. With the change in location comes a shift in tone, as action sequences and comic interludes are thrown into the mix, but that's great too. One memorably pithy exchange between Rea and his boss sticks in the mind. "She's not a tart," Rea says angrily. "No, I suppose she's a lady," his effete manager barks back.
The film is uncategorisable and all the better for it: a glossily-shot masterpiece that bucks convention at every turn. And in Stephen Rea's subtle turn it possesses arguably the best performance of the '90s. Davidson and Miranda Richardson (as Rea's former lover) are also strong, while Neil Jordan excels not only as a director, but also as a writer of dialogue. All that and a cover of the '60s theme song by Boy George over the end credits.
It's so much more than just a fantastic twist.
The DVD has a commentary, deleted scenes and insightful featurettes, and some copies come with a nice cardboard slipcase.DVD of the Week archive#1 - Let's Get Lost (Bruce Weber, 1988)
#2 - Charley Varrick (Don Siegel, 1973)#3 - The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
#4 - The Raven (Lew Landers, 1935)#5 - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)#6 - Written and Directed by Preston Sturges (Preston Sturges, 1940-44)
