Director: Richard J. Lewis (debut film)
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver
On Blu-Ray + DVD: June 28, 2011
Barney's Version suffers from a film malady called "expedited biopic syndrome", a term I made up as I typed this sentence. What I mean by that ridiculous phrase is that the separate parts of Barney's Version are superb, with great humor, great acting, and some interesting ideas. The problem is that when the film is looked at as a whole, the story goes by very fast in favor of one or two key scenes, and this expedited storytelling hinders the overall effectiveness of the film. Mainly because of this, Barney's Version is a film that, although they may like it, many people will have a problem connecting with.
"Expedited biopic syndrome" isn't a problem exclusive to Barney's Version. Many biopics suffer mightily because of the same lack of cohesion and emotion that should make those more focal scenes feel so important. A few that come to mind are The World According to Garp, Bird, and Born on the Fourth of July. It is logically a more salient problem with fictional biopics like Barney. In biopics based on real people, we can fill in the details ourselves sometimes with what we already know, but in fictional biopics, we know nothing about these people, meaning that the filmmakers must delve even deeper into their characters to make us care about them. This is probably why this expedition of plot occurs so often in biopics: they are already, on average, the longest films of any genre (Barney's Version, even with its lack of development, clocks in at 2 hours, 12 minutes), and filmmakers are probably afraid of losing some moviegoers because of this length.
All that is only loosely related to the main subject of this film review, but I felt like I needed to define my new term if I was going to use it. In terms of Barney's Version, many of the smaller details and plot points that would make Barney's story believable are simply missing. For example, Barney's second wife (played by Minnie Driver) is shown from the onset of their relationship until their divorce in the span of perhaps 15 minutes. In that time span, we are supposed to understand how little Barney cares for her, how he has pushed her away, how this has affected her, and how she would react (by having sex with Barney's best friend, Boogie). Linked to this is the entire character of Boogie, who is characterized as a womanizer but only mentions one sexual encounter before having sex with Barney's wife. None of these significant pieces of the story are explained enough, and they come off as only silly instead of poignant or distressing. This is only one example, but the movie is riddled with instances like these.
I am getting ahead of myself, though. The overall story of Barney's Version is definitely interesting and fun. Barney is a TV director who has a tendency to marry women he doesn't love. This is true until he meets Miriam (Pike) at his wedding to another woman. The rest of the film follows Barney's pursuit of Miriam, their partnership, and their dissolution. Interwoven in this story are two subplots: a detective who is convinced that Barney murdered someone, and Barney's relationship with his father (Hoffman). This last subplot was definitely the most interesting portion of the entire film for me. Then again, I have a tendency to relate strongly with father-sibling stories in general. Regardless, the plot kept me engaged throughout, even if I was wanting more (but we won't get into that again).
The acting in Barney's Version is unequivocally great from everyone involved, though. Paul Giamatti's Barney is one of the best performances I've seen recently and he was one of the few winners at last year's Golden Globes who actually deserved their award. Giamatti is almost completely responsible for the emotionally rich and complex character of Barney since, as previously stated, much of the plot that should establish this is missing. His performance during the last, most interesting 30 minutes of the film is devastating. Dustin Hoffman also gives the best performance I've seen from him in over a decade. I've just recently started seeing most of Hoffman's great films (I've seen The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Rain Man all in the last year), and although Barney's Version doesn't compare overall to any of these, Hoffman's performance was reminiscent in all the right ways of his early amazing filmography. Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike also give good performances, though their characters are really just sieves for us to see different sides of Barney.
Barney's Version is an interesting, funny, and incomplete film. As a biopic, it doesn't work too well, as most of Barney's thoughts and motivations are left unexplained. It works just fine, though, if you try not to assign it a label and just let the film be what it is: a story about a man's love life, held together by a few strong scenes and even stronger performances from the cast. You'll probably like Barney's Version; just don't expect to love it.
Barney's Version suffers from a film malady called "expedited biopic syndrome", a term I made up as I typed this sentence. What I mean by that ridiculous phrase is that the separate parts of Barney's Version are superb, with great humor, great acting, and some interesting ideas. The problem is that when the film is looked at as a whole, the story goes by very fast in favor of one or two key scenes, and this expedited storytelling hinders the overall effectiveness of the film. Mainly because of this, Barney's Version is a film that, although they may like it, many people will have a problem connecting with.
"Expedited biopic syndrome" isn't a problem exclusive to Barney's Version. Many biopics suffer mightily because of the same lack of cohesion and emotion that should make those more focal scenes feel so important. A few that come to mind are The World According to Garp, Bird, and Born on the Fourth of July. It is logically a more salient problem with fictional biopics like Barney. In biopics based on real people, we can fill in the details ourselves sometimes with what we already know, but in fictional biopics, we know nothing about these people, meaning that the filmmakers must delve even deeper into their characters to make us care about them. This is probably why this expedition of plot occurs so often in biopics: they are already, on average, the longest films of any genre (Barney's Version, even with its lack of development, clocks in at 2 hours, 12 minutes), and filmmakers are probably afraid of losing some moviegoers because of this length.
All that is only loosely related to the main subject of this film review, but I felt like I needed to define my new term if I was going to use it. In terms of Barney's Version, many of the smaller details and plot points that would make Barney's story believable are simply missing. For example, Barney's second wife (played by Minnie Driver) is shown from the onset of their relationship until their divorce in the span of perhaps 15 minutes. In that time span, we are supposed to understand how little Barney cares for her, how he has pushed her away, how this has affected her, and how she would react (by having sex with Barney's best friend, Boogie). Linked to this is the entire character of Boogie, who is characterized as a womanizer but only mentions one sexual encounter before having sex with Barney's wife. None of these significant pieces of the story are explained enough, and they come off as only silly instead of poignant or distressing. This is only one example, but the movie is riddled with instances like these.
I am getting ahead of myself, though. The overall story of Barney's Version is definitely interesting and fun. Barney is a TV director who has a tendency to marry women he doesn't love. This is true until he meets Miriam (Pike) at his wedding to another woman. The rest of the film follows Barney's pursuit of Miriam, their partnership, and their dissolution. Interwoven in this story are two subplots: a detective who is convinced that Barney murdered someone, and Barney's relationship with his father (Hoffman). This last subplot was definitely the most interesting portion of the entire film for me. Then again, I have a tendency to relate strongly with father-sibling stories in general. Regardless, the plot kept me engaged throughout, even if I was wanting more (but we won't get into that again).
The acting in Barney's Version is unequivocally great from everyone involved, though. Paul Giamatti's Barney is one of the best performances I've seen recently and he was one of the few winners at last year's Golden Globes who actually deserved their award. Giamatti is almost completely responsible for the emotionally rich and complex character of Barney since, as previously stated, much of the plot that should establish this is missing. His performance during the last, most interesting 30 minutes of the film is devastating. Dustin Hoffman also gives the best performance I've seen from him in over a decade. I've just recently started seeing most of Hoffman's great films (I've seen The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Rain Man all in the last year), and although Barney's Version doesn't compare overall to any of these, Hoffman's performance was reminiscent in all the right ways of his early amazing filmography. Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike also give good performances, though their characters are really just sieves for us to see different sides of Barney.
Barney's Version is an interesting, funny, and incomplete film. As a biopic, it doesn't work too well, as most of Barney's thoughts and motivations are left unexplained. It works just fine, though, if you try not to assign it a label and just let the film be what it is: a story about a man's love life, held together by a few strong scenes and even stronger performances from the cast. You'll probably like Barney's Version; just don't expect to love it.
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