Lulu on the Bridge (1999)

Lulu On The Bridge is an odd one, and that's a compliment. It subtly strains at the constrictions of genre until you realize just how unique it has gotten right under your nose. I've always thought of it as the Abel Ferrara fiom that he never made. Harvey Keitel delivers a home run of a lead performance as Izzy Maurer, a renowned jazz musician who loses his ability to play after he is shot by a lunatic gunman (Kevin Corrigan) while he is performing his music in a cafe. He sinks into a deep depression following the incident, and then something curious happens. One day he finds a mysterious stone, with a phone number attached to it and some seemingly supernatural qualities which alter the psyche, mood and perception of anyone in its vicinity. The phone number leads him to Celia Burns (the ever excellent and under estimated Mira Sorvino), an aspiring actress who's fallen just south of the success line, and has a taste for Izzy's music. The two seem destined to meet and as you might guess, begin a passionate love affair that begins to get a bit obsessive, with strong hints directed towards the stone that seems to govern will and volition. Their romance is hot, heavy and volatile, threatened when a mysterious man named Dr. Can Horn (a classy but dangerous Willem Dafoe) separately kidnaps them in attempt to retrieve the stone. The script deliberately shades over its true intentions until the very last minute, stopping to pick many dialogue and thematic flowers along the way, as well as leave a few red herrings behind. Gina Gershon is great as Izzy's ex wife, and the monumantal supporting cast also includes Richard Edson, the great Victor Argo, Harold Perrineau, Mandy Patinkin, Vanessa Redgrave and a brief Lou Reed who is pricelessly credited as 'Not Lou Reed'. If you snag a DVD you can also see deleted scenes work from Stockard Channing, Jared Harris, Josef Sommer and Giancarlo Esposito. The film attempts music, mystery, doomed love, urban mysticism, thriller and drama elements. I'm happy to report that it succeeds at all of them, a gem not unlike the mcguffin stone within the plot, and a haunting little modern fairy tale. Check it out.

**SPOILERS** Strange little movie that has to do with a man who's forced to see himself for who he really is not who he want's people, as well as himself, to think what's he's really not. Famous jazz saxophone player Izzy Maurer, Harvey Keitel,is doing his gig at a Greenwich Village night spot when this deranged lunatic bursts in with a gun blazing away and catches Izzy with a bullet in his left-lung and then turns the gun on himself. Izzy recovering from this life-threatening injury at a local NYC hospital is told that his left lung had to be removed and that he'll never be able to play the saxophone again. This to Izzy is like being told that he died. Alone and depressed Izzy walks the streets of New York aimlessly until one night when he comes across this body in a dark alley shot dead with a bullet in his head. Checking out the stiffs wallet Izzy finds out that the dead mans name is Stanley Mar and among his personal effects is a napkin with a telephone number written on it and a small box that has a smaller box in it with a small red-striped stone. At his apartment Izzy finds that the stone has these strange magical powers that he just can't phantom and then calls the phone number on Mar's napkin to find that it belongs to a Celia Burns, Mira Sorvino. Celia is ironically listening to a CD of Izzy's music when he calls her! Izzy makes a date with Celia to come over and when he does he treats her so rudely that she almost asks him to leave or she'll call the police. It's only when Izzy explains to Celia about the stone, that emits a bright and soft blue light and levitates as well as shows her it's strange powers that she realizes, like he did, that it's something beyond the forces of nature! The stone also seems to have magical powers of healing and creating luck for those who have it in their possession. It's after that strange meeting the two besides falling madly in love with each other have things start to change for the better for both of them. Celia a struggling young actress who supports herself as a waitress working gets a major part, in fact the leading role, in the movie "Pandoras Box" playing the role of it's star Lulu. Izzy's depression suddenly disappears because of his affair, and attachment, to Celia but there's things that are about to break that will turn this blissful dream for the two lovebirds into a dark and terrifying nightmare. Traveling to Dublin Ireland to do the movie Celia tells Izzy to keep in touch by phone and come visit her but as the days go by there's no word at all from Izzy. Getting kidnapped back in New York by a bunch of hoodlums who think that he has Stanley's Mar's "magic stone", which he gave to Celia, Izzy is locked up in this empty warehouse and threatened with death if he doesn't talk. Celia shooting the movie "Pandora's Box" is a sensation on the set but at the same time is worried about her love Izzy who she hasn't heard from since she left New York. She soon get's so depressed by not hearing from him that one evening Celia, feeling dejected and abandoned, throws the "magic stone" into the nearby Liffey River. Being visited by this pseudo-shrink Dr. Van Horn, Willem DeFoe,Izzy is mentally tortured about his past and what a low-life rat he was to both his dad who's funeral he didn't attend and older brother Franz who hasn't spoken to him for seven years because of that. Izzy is about to break under Dr. Van Horn's brain-twisting tactics when he finally breaks out of his confinement and runs to the safety of the home of his friend Philip Kleinman,Mandy Patinkin,who's involved in the film that Celia is staring in.To both his surprise and shock Izzy finds that Celia had disappeared just before the filming of "Pandora's Box" was finished! It later turned that the poor girl committed suicide when after being chased by Dr. Van Horn and two of his goons thinking that she had the mystical stone on her Celia jumped off the Dublin Ha'Penny Bridge into the Liffey River and her body was never recovered. Izzy sobbing and in a state of complete depression sits alone in his apartment watching the out-takes, that Philip gave him, of the movie "Pandora's Box" with Celia in them. It's then that the biggest surprise of all in the movie "Lulu on the Bridge" is about to come and hit the audience with the force of a sledge hammer right between their eyes! A real honest to goodness LuLu!

I saw that movie in 1998 and since I can't get it out of my mind. The story is complete, you don't have the feeling to be puzzled as in Lynch's movies and that you're missing the biggest part.This movie had a weird effect on me, some weeks ago (seven years after having seen it), I needed to begin playing saxophone and some days after, a story about a stone such as the one in the movie obsessed me, I'm going to write a novel based on it.I don't really know why but this movie, and only this movie, changed my life.The actress is so beautiful she'll hardly come out of my head too, and I find Harvey Keitel very good in this movie, he fits his role perfectly.

I know that it was not, but it seemed like this film was about six hours long. Now by saying that, I am not implying you get your money's worth, quite the opposite. What I want to know, is how you could put together a cast this interesting and make a film so boring. I would feed you the plot, but it would bore you so much you would stop reading this review. Meanwhile, the "Academy Award Winning" Mira Sorvino (choke choke gasp gasp) is more and more being referenced with "I can't believe the Academy actually gave her an award." Cheer up, Mira, Angelina Jolie got one as well, she will take some heat off of you. * out of ****.