The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, October 20, 1994 - 7
Stoltz, Fonda unite in 'Rest and Motion'
By ALEXANDRA TWIN
The ubiquitous Eric Stoltz, who, by
the end of the fall season will have
appeared in no less than five films this
year, is by no means an actor to be
categorized easily. From the goofy,
*irfer dude of "Fast Times at
Ridgemont High" (1981) to the shy,
rejected Rocky of "Mask" (1984) to
the struggling paraplegic of "The
Waterdance" (1991) to the reluctant,
bankrobbingZed ofthis week's "Kill-
ing Zoe," Stolz has proven himself to
be a strong character actor, arguably
eze
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Entertainment
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Mlost comfortable playing the sensi-
tive youth but just as capable of sur-
passing the frail, tenuous demeanor
that his slight physicality suggests.
However, "Bodies, Rest and Mo-
tion,"the 1993 projectthatunitedStoltz
with longtime girlfriend Bridget
Fonda - as well as Tim Roth and
Phoebe Cates - is a film that finds
the scraggly red-head, once again, in
the role of "nice guy." This time he
plays Sid. A painter, if you will.
Beth (Bridget Fonda) lives with
Nick (Tim Roth). Nick and Carol
Cfhoebe Cates) used to seeeach other.
w Carol and Beth are best friends.
Nick still sleeps with Carol, but Beth
doesn't really know. They are all kind
of bored and shiftless, late twenty-some-
things with minimal identities and no
real direction.
At the left of center of the film is
Nick, volatile and anxious. He is using
both women, both to rob the former
electronics store he worked at and to
*oid dealing with the larger complexi-
ties of his life, but that's really beside
the point. These actions are meaning-
less. His life, as a whole, revolves
around random, sporadic actions that
ultimately get hiih nowhere. Beth's
moreconventional desires are fruitless
when matched with the utter apathy
and hints of self-loathing swarming
inside him. Yet, he drags her along,
onvincing her to uproot her life and
llow him out of Arizona. Enter Sid.
He's been hired to repaint.
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In the day and night that it takes him
to do this, the last day and night that
Beth will spend in her house, the
highly educated, elegant Beth dis-
covers that she has a lot more in
common with the low-brow house
painter than she'd ever expect.
Your typical love story? Maybe.
Yet the two star-crossed ones merely
talk, fuck and smoke pot for a night
before moving on. Their interaction
has shaken Beth from hercomplacency,
gotten her going and now she needs to
find a way to make things work.
Based around Newton's theory
that a body at rest or motion tends to
stay that way unless acted on by an-
other body, the film examines what
happens when the stagnancy of these
people's lives is shaken up by the
arrival of something or someone
wholly unexpected. In the case of
Beth, it might be said that the results
are productive. With Nick, nothing
will help him.
He is forever in motion, incapable
of easing up anywhere. An 11th-hour
attempt to see his long-abandoned fa-
ther brings him to the doorstep of a
young, desolate girl (the extraordinary
Alicia Witt) who offers him the kind
of compassion and insight he prob-
ably needs, yet is unable to accept.
When Sid does not follow the
quickly fleeing Beth, Nick finally boils
over. "I don't know what I want!" he
screams atthe astonished Sid and Carol,
"But it's not in here and it's not out
there. But he (Sid) knows what he
wants. He wants her (Beth) and he's
not doing a damn thing about it."
This is enough to get Sid moving.
Once acted upon, he is set in motion,
as the arguably pretentious premise
has implied.
Directed by. Michael Steinberg
("The Waterdance"), the film is a me-
andering, if occasionally too slowly-
paced foray into the intricacies of the
everyday of these four characters. Yet,
the details that it exposes are broader,
resonating out above and beyond the
limits of the narrative.
Your typical love story?
Maybe. Yet the two
star-crossed ones
merely talk, fuck and
smoke pot for a night
before moving on.
As played by the fervent and al-
ways impressive Roth, Nick is some-
thing of a masterpiece: half charmer,
half manipulator, all salesman. Cates
is underused, but solid as the fluttery
Carol. Fonda's relatively strong per-
formance is mostly affective. Yet,
roaming beneath it all is Eric Stoltz.
With an artist's eye, a beat poet's
heart and agrungy pair of overalls, Sid
is easily the film's most endearing char-
acter. He is both philosophical and
amusing, yet always more intuned to
the workings of the others' thought
processes than they seem to be.
Yet, even he, for all his wisdom,
can not figure it all out. The "secret" to
life, that is. The final scene finds him
circling the parking lot of a darkened
Motel 6, looking for Beth. She's not
at this one, but she may be at the next
Eric Stoltz, MIchael Steinberg, and Bridget Fonda doing mostly a lot of resting in "Bodies, Rest and Motion."
or the next or the next. Or not. But that something else worthwhile in the pro- seems bare, but really wide open.
possibility is almost secondary. The cess, at least he's found a means of BODIES, REST AND MOTION is
crucial point is that he's looking, taking action. The future, like the available at Liberty Street Video
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