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THE TERMINAL / Malcontent's Mark: B+
June 18, 2004
Viktor Navorski: Tom Hanks
Amelia: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Frank Dixon: Stanley Tucci
Mulroy: Chi McBride
Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Written by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson.
Rated PG-13
Most people already know Steven Spielberg as a master storyteller. But I've also considered him one of the more courageous directors. Though he’s known for his showmanship, garnered blockbuster status, and earned legions of fans, he continues to take chances. Since 2001’s A.I., he’s ventured into highly personal territory where many fans have been hesitant to follow.
After being on the top of his game with Saving Private Ryan, he took a detour with A.I – a movie that introduced his obsession with bleached out cinematography and the dissonance and despair between fathers and sons. He continued these dreary obsessions in his following two films, Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report. (Many felt Minority Report was Spielberg’s return to rollicking sci-fi adventure. I, on the other hand, was growing tired of his persistence in dredging the gloom and doom of yet another severed father/son relationship.)
Therefore, it’s refreshing to see Spielberg finally venturing into new territory with The Terminal – a light, whimsical Frank Capraesque farce.
After arriving in JFK airport, Viktor Navorski - Tom Hanks in a physical performance that channels Buster Keaton - discovers that his nation, Krakozia, has fallen in a coup. Thus his passport and visa are worthless, his country no longer exists, and he cannot go forward or go back. According to the airport authorities, he’s free to remain in the International Arrivals Lounge, but forbidden to step beyond the airport’s exit doors onto American soil.
Spielberg, his actors and writers (Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson) create a film so sweet-natured and old fashioned, you are taken off guard. When most modern stories are drenched in irony and cynicism, Spielberg delivers a movie reminiscent of It Happened One Night and It's a Wonderful Life.
The terminal itself becomes a character. It’s a vast construction by production designer Alex McDowell. The camera sweeps across the generic span of glass and marble, retail outlets, and fluorescent lights – it’s an inhospitable environment that deadens the emotions, and blanches the spirit. As an underlying satire of the movie, we’re shown how this dispiriting locale is the Ellis Island for 21st century immigrants.
Yet in an age when most films locales are built with computer graphics, it’s refreshing that Spielberg chooses the base most of the film’s action in a good, old fashioned studio set - again reminiscent of the Golden Age of cinema.
Some may find The Terminal mediocre, even boring.
But those who are willing to let the
movie glide on its own gentle momentum will get swept up in refreshing whimsy
rarely found in the multiplexes.
Copyright (c) 2003
Bryan Stumpf.
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