The Dying Gaul (2005)

Clever, clever, clever. Craig Lucas' THE DYING GAUL turns the thriller genre blithely on its head with this trio of awful people who have little more in common than a moving, autobiographical screenplay that will receive a complacent makeover, sophisticated hypocrisy, and the pretense of friendship masking hidden agendas. Robert Sandrich is at the center of this story -- a writer who has child support to pay and is in dire need of a hit. He's written this fantastic, beautiful, evocative story that is based on his own life experience: a love story between two men that ends in the death of one of them, titled "The Dying Gaul." Jeffrey Tishop is a movie producer, and is interested... with one simple condition: it needs changing. American audiences, he says, hate gays, and will not go to the theatres to see a movie about two gay men in love. (The movie is set in the mid-90s.) Now, if Robert changes the male character -- Maurice, also the name of Robert's agent and longtime lover who has died -- into a woman, it would be perfect. Robert, understandably, is horrified: he's being asked the unthinkable, and he has his heart in this story. Jeffrey sleekly tells him, he loves the story -- and he's even shown it to Gus Van Sant (who at the time was at his peak). However, the change is necessary.Robert bolts, but succumbs to one tiny little detail: one million dollars, payable to him immediately, to which he can after this one story do whatever he chooses to -- create stories of gay men left and right, ill or healthy. Robert is in a predicament... and he sells his soul.Enter Elaine. She's a former screenwriter herself, now living the life of comfort in her Los Angeles house overlooking the sea. Jeffrey introduces her to Robert first via his screenplay, which moves her to tears (as he is deleting all 1172 instances of Maurice and changing it to Maggie). She later meets him for a night out at the movies, and she and Robert have the kind of chat that happens when two women are sharing innermost secrets. Among them is the fact that he's into internet chat and goes to a specific room in a system not unlike AOL. Curious about him -- maybe a little too much so -- she follows him into this chat room using a male identity and uncovers a little bit about him. Of course, the anonymity of internet chat makes people talk more than they should, and a later conversation between Elaine and Robert reveals something crucial, possibly hinted all throughout her marriage, but there, in front of her, typed words on a monitor.Craig Lucas discloses himself as a great orchestrator of people approaching their own realities from an oblique path in his extremely well plotted out and near perfect story. His use of Steve Reich's music is stunning, and perfectly counterpoints the plot turns, as well as sounds per se -- like when Elaine discovers her husband's secret and a hose goes off, or the shrieks of the Tishop children at the beginning, bookended by something horrible at the end. If you can overlook the one point of the story where plausibility might be put into question -- the fact that Robert would be so gullible to answer an approach as naked as the one Elaine uses masquerading as "Sean" -- "Anyone here ever lost a lover?" -- then the rest of the story which follows is a careful construction of times suspense that doesn't swallow its conceit whole. Even so, the fulcrum here, online chat, holds itself well being that at the time there was this innocence about chat rooms. I would have to believe Robert had only recently taken it up after the pain of losing Maurice and his overwhelming loneliness, since he doesn't seem to have friends or a life outside his computer and fiction. Only then could it jell in a perfect seam. (Then again, anyone who's come into the Internet for the first time does so with a sense of novelty that only progressively, after much disappointment, loses its truthfulness.) Where the story somehow loses a little of its initial punch is when Elaine takes her online act further as "Arckangel1966". But, for there to be some form of suspense, it's probably the only way to convey this progressive bull-fight between her and Robert, and the presentation is certainly pitch-perfect in letting us see both actors talking directly to the camera and hear voice-overs of what they're typing, but also letting us hear her as her male counterpart -- in this case, Maurice himself. It's suspension of disbelief that pays off.Neither of the three characters come off naked to us. I think it's a good thing because it gives their words, their actions, and even small gestures a hint of duplicity and doesn't allow anyone to come off smelling like a rose. Jeffrey, for example, states he's shown the script to Van Sant, but his eyes indicate otherwise. His attraction to Robert may be sexual, but masks the greed of having your cake and eating it too. Robert is just creepy: not a bad guy, but a little off, not above betrayal and even murder. Elaine's motives are, while understandable, more unclear. Baiting Robert with information she gets access to through a private investigator is plain ugly. In a way, she's a new kind of femme fatale -- one that under the guise of an identity can be anyone. This is one deadly threesome.Craig Lucas' THE DYING GAUL is a complex film that despite some minor flaws stemming from its online conceit digs deep into the veneer of those who seem to have it all, and those who are trying to have it all. Patricia Clarkson, Campbell Scott, and Peter Sarsgaard are uniformly flawless in their characters and are reason enough to see this movie.

the one thing I did enjoy about this film was how the tiresome victim queen Buddhist cub who is constantly spouting new age-isms finally makes what is typically the most heartfelt use of them, as new agers will, as tools of aggression, when confronted by the wife he's been cuckolding. unable to say "I'm sorry" or anything so retro, speechlessly shrugging helplessly at first, until wife's tone changes, becoming accusatory, at which point he zealously spits out that old saw "You are responsible for everything that happens to you!!" meaning that her übercreepy gay husband has been talking' dirty to him, hum-pin' his thigh when he's all weepy, etc etc (ad nauseous...). That's enlightenment, if not entertainment! Ah, but wait, there's more! when wife fesses up that it is she who has messed with his head by going on AOL and pretending to be that sacred being "the lover who died of AIDS" (let's all cross ourselves now), well the next thing you know, she's responsible for cub's poisoning her with his gardening savvy, causing the death of not only her but her two kids!!!!!!! Hey, you reap what you sow (in the garden, as Chauncey would say). What goes around comes around! It's all good bro! The writer is so disinterested in what he is actually saying/meaning/how his film might in any way reflect the real world inhabited by humans/how it might make a mockery of his philosophy, I'm supposing, from what kinda crap makes up the rest of the film, that it's my guess that the irony here is lost on him. He probably himself is terribly "new age" and felt great about keep-in the faith in this film, but couldn't resist the, you know, "drama" to be had from taking all these loose in the incontinence sense plot threads and weaving together something as lurid as he possibly could, no matter whether any of it actually makes sense in any logical/emotional way. The whole film reminds me of that silly house they live in. Yeah wouldn't it just be lovely to have to walk down this huge flight of stairs when you arrive home after a long day. or to trudge up them on the way to work, how cool!!! Just so stupid and senseless really and calling attention to it's compositional hand. blah. The "Hollywood references" were another of the films biggest, well, howlers. The movie is clearly meant to be the wet dream of every screen writing queen so it's "who would you like to direct?" "Gus van Sandy" and the lovers of this film would no doubt agree "one of our finest gay directors!" "well, he's read it and he's interested!" as if homophobic Gus van Sandy would ever be interested in a film about a little cub and his "lover who died of aids"!!! well, maybe he would be if as the big bad studio wants, the film is made for str8s. Then his mile high misogynistic streak could really go to town killing this woman with KS and everything else for stealing away all the hot men! (in an interview he said once "I don't like to hang out with gay guys, I like to hang out with straight guys, sometimes I score." Yeah sometimes you are pack-in lots of coke and use your clout as a movie director, sing it bitch, loud and proud you fool. Gus van Sandy is an amazing filmmaker but a total ass who would probably grovel for the dick of the first Chelsea boy or we-ho queen to offer it to him and likely does frequently just like every other Hollywood monster out there). either Gus van Sandy or truffaut? OK whatever.and when the guy says he might kill his wife as in "crimes in misdemeanors" you'd think the producer had never seen the film. unless wife is in a position to blackmail him, but if she is we don't know anything about it.and we do get a sense of the auteur's disdain for violent video games, while he comes out with this garbage. well, it's all part of that old school queen Terrence Macaulay "lisbon traviata" self loathing killing each other queens kinda thing. . . . starts to make the pseudo tough guy Gus van Sandy Wm Burroughs kinda thing look almost appealing. blah.what's so great about Patricia Carlson anyway? casting her reminds me of Liberace's raising his piano bench to play Chopin, to give the audience to understand that "this is a high class number". She's a ham and I hate that blissed out expression she always has she's tired!And PS is cute but the way people on here are drooling about him since Kinsey (blah) you'd think he was James dean and Jeff striker rolled into one! he's just an OK looking gay guy actor. it's pretty funny to check out the discussions on here, people bending over backwards to preserve Robert's status as a (blah) "sympathetic character" ("maybe she didn't eat the salad maybe she crashed the car so the two men could be to getter!")the gay audience deserves this kind of insult, that' all,. that's the sad fact. no surprise this film is like closing night at half the gay festivals. blah

This is a gem of a film. Directed by Craig Lucas (I loved his LONGTIME COMPANION, also starring this film's star, Campbell Scott) it is adapted from the play centering around a young screenwriter who sells his story for a cool million. There are conditions which I won't divulge. See the movie. This is a love triangle in a strange scenario. Lucas brings many moments in this film by a closeup. While going into the internet chat rooms, he pulls out deep and dark thoughts from his leading player.I thought Peter Sarsgaard, whom I recently admired in JARHEAD, did a remarkable job with a complex and difficult role. He brought a depth to his character. Patricia Clarkson, too, was outstanding. Campbell Scott brought a fine performance to the screen. These three players worked well together. Bouncing off each other like a pin ball machine. Scott redeemed himself with this as producer and actor from that bad movie he made LUSH. I'm not too familiar with Clarkson's work but will certainly look forward to other films after viewing this. Sarsgaard was remarkable in JARHEAD and doesn't disappoint me in this one. Hats off to the three stars and Lucas for a fine job.

I found this movie to be indulgent, pretentious and full of plot holes. While I appreciate the protagonist's problems, the entire beginning seems to be set up solely so that Jeffrey (Campbell Scott) -- who is supposedly a heterosexual family man and movie producer -- can shock the audience by propositioning aspiring screenwriter, Robert (Peter Sarsgaard) without the knowledge of Jeffrey's wife Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), who also seems entranced by Robert. I have some experience of writing and pitching spec screenplays and this whole incident was unconvincingly contrived. Again, even though the acting was excellent, the movie sagged because of hole in the plot large enough for a Buick to pass through. There is a point when Elaine (after discovering that Robert and her husband are lovers), poses as a man on a gay chat site and lures Robert into revealing things about himself. Then -- as punishment for her husband's transgressions -- she pretends to be the spirit of Robert's ex-lover and reveals secrets to Robert of how he "assisted" in the death of his lover and intimate details of his love-making with her husband. Normally, this would be chilling and an inspired turn of events, but it is spoiled by the fact that there is no set-up for where Elaine gathers the evidence. We never see her break into Robert's therapist's home nor do we see her bug Robert's apartment. Basically it is lazy film-making, which I find offensive.It's ironic that a story of compromise, betrayal and revenge is itself compromised and betrayed by lack of attention and pretension.