ARTS
The Michigan Daily
Page 7
Pw
Ordinary bloke gets it
R ight in quirky comedy
BY NABEEL ZUBERI Getting it Right feels like The cence. And Lynn Redgrave is excep-
Graduate without the empty exis- tional as the cool but vulnerable
Getting it Right draws art from tential gazes and without the sound Joan, a wealthy socialite.
the ordinary. Of course, the British of silence - it's more amiable. As Sir Mundy, Minnie's father,
have been doing this for donkey's Surrounded by eccentric people John Gielgud is marvelous; watch
years; the Pet Shop Boys and The and strange relationships, Gavin for the way in which his fake Sir
Smiths built careers upon it. learns about life and love through Gordon's aristocratic accent dis-
Talking about the weather, cats and his encounters with three women; solves away to reveal the lazy
dogs, and the buses has always been it's the strength of the characteriza- rounded vowels of a less genteel
a very British thing to do. And in its tions which makes Getting It Right background. Sir Mundy's wife is
own endearing way, Getting it Right an engaging and quirky movie. As hopelessly dizzy, well on her way to
appeals to that part of us which just the wayward, anorexic Minerva becoming a basket-case. There's also
wants to live life as a thoroughly Mundy, Helena Bonham Carter Gavin's mum, who insists on trying
ordinary Joe/Josephine. plays the antithesis of Lucy in A to cook foreign dishes from bad
The only extraordinary thing Room With A View; here, she's all recipes in magazines; and Gavin's1
about the incredibly ordinary Gavin gangly limbs and neurotic shivers, best friend Harry, whose gay love1
(Jesse Birdsall) is that he's 31, and the posh schoolgirl who's thrown affair with Liverpudlian hunk
still a virgin. Gavin's a hairdresser the etiquette manual out of the dorm Winthrop is always encountering
in London's West End, at ease with window. The mousy, sprightly heavy turbulence. In the middle of
the little old ladies that he coiffures, Jenny, a quintessential Yorkshire all this organized chaos is Gavin,
but nervous about talking to young lass with a good head on her shoul- Jesse Birdsall portrays his emergence
women. His real life goes on in his ders, is played by Jane Horrocks into manhood with a rare, under-
head; he dreams about the right girl, with just the right amount of stated subtlety. Much of the script
the right job, the right apartment. toughness and girl-next-door inno- relies on Gavin's voice-over narra-
tive, detailing his thoughts in the
scene; Birdsall has a lot of acting to
Re co d do purely with facial expression.
Much credit for the movie's
Van Morrison sharp wit and strength of charac-
Avalon Sunset terization must go to Elizabeth Jane
Mercury Howard's script, adapted from her
Irish Heartbeat, Van Morrison time for schism or greed/ Go up toown prize-winning novel In its
and the Chieftains' collaborative the mountain, go up to the glen/ general ambience, Getting ft Right
album of Gaelic-roots traditional When silence will touch you and recalls the great British films of the
music, was one of last year's most heartbreak will end." Oh, if life w early 1960s, such as A Taste of
sublime records. But it was a only like that more often! w r aHoney, Billy Liar, Georgy Girl and
departure from the gospel-tinged -Nabeel Zuberi Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.
soul of Van the Man's last few
releases; Avalon Sunset carries on
in this vein, but goes the whole hog
in its romanticism and spirituality.
This is Morrison's best long-player
since 1982's Beautiful Vision.
The gospel opening track,
"Whenever God Shines His Light"
(with Cliff Richard guesting on vo-
cals) reestablishes Morrison's preoc-
cupation with the spiritual influenceI
of William Blake; the poet's
Christian transcendentalism pervades
"ContactingSu e . ahe R oi kean The following mail-in form contains subscription costs for the up-
mantic "Have I Told You," offer coming school year.
spine-tingling instrumental intros; r-----------------
never before has Morrison used lush Name
strings to such devastating effect. Address
The songs reek with a heavy, humidICity state zip
romanticism in the way only Irish
music can do - the latter is surely | Subscription Rates: (prepaid)
his most beautiful ballad since the Fall/Winter In town 2800
essential Astral Weeks.Fa/tr OIntown 2.00
A spoken monologue set to Sept-Apr Out of town 39.00
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away with - another reflective ode Please enclose check or money order payable to The Michigan DailyJ
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words of "I'm Tired Joey Boy" best Circulation Dept., 420 Maynard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
sum up the mood: "Love of the
simple is all that I need/ I've no
Helena Bonham Carter (the pristine Lucy in A Room with a View)
stars in Randal Kleiser's Getting it Right - as the eccentric Minnie,
a romantic interest of 31-year old virgin Gavin (Jesse Birdsall).
Director Randall Kleiser similiarly disillusion found in the work of so
squeezes glamour out of greyness, many recent British filmmakers.
but the 1960s films are gritter and Finally, though, the movie's
have more of an edge. Getting It Truffaut-esque humanism succeeds
Right lacks a social context; its in its small way because of its good
characters could be set in Any Time, nature - and the way it makes
post-war Britain - there's no class poetry out of the prosaic.
antagonism, no race prejudice, no GE7TING IT RIGHT will play at
unemployment, no sense of the Michigan Theater Friday at 7:25
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