{"id":7522,"date":"2014-09-17T15:44:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T22:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=7522"},"modified":"2014-09-17T15:44:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T22:44:21","slug":"my-old-lady-worst-k-kline-performance-to-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=7522","title":{"rendered":"My Old Lady- Kevin Kline is Acting, Dammit!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Engagement Opens Friday, September 19th
\nLandmark\u2019s La Jolla Village Cinemas
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\nMy Old Lady <\/em>has the special distinction of being a film that you can tell is based on a play. It happens more often than not when the stage breeds the source material. You can hear<\/em> it every word. The cadence is rhythmic as the banter flies back and forth on beat.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood why plays are written as richly as they rely so heavily on the spoken word to tell the story. I always get crappy seats so you must communicate to me sitting in up in balcony\/ether. \u00a0It is not much of a visual medium. But to translate that onto film can cause stylized performances that don\u2019t read as well up close. I find that the performances, when not handled properly, can become stilted with a touch of the realism exiting stage left.<\/p>\n

Examples of it working out: Death and the Maiden, Driving Miss Daisy, August: Osage County, Bug.<\/em><\/p>\n

Examples of it not working so good: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tape, The Crucible. <\/em><\/p>\n

This is all a roundabout way of me saying that in My Old Lady<\/em> Kevin Kline is not very good. I adore the man and usually enjoy his work but in this film, under the direction of the play\u2019s author Isreal Horovitz, Kline gives a stiff performance. You can tell he\u2019s acting, reciting lines and putting on faces. This is even more exasperated as he plays next to Kristin Scott Thomas and the wondrous Maggie Smith- both whom do not struggle with the dialogue. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen Kline have such trouble and it\u2019s depressing because you get the sense that he thinks he\u2019s nailing it. Nominations are sure to follow. I don\u2019t think as much.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sad affair for the viewer as the story has some potential. Kline as a deep-down on his luck loser who inherits an apartment in Paris once his estranged father dies. He finds an elderly Smith awaiting him and discovers \u00a0she comes with the apartment which is part of a \u201cviager\u201d arrangement where the former owner of the apartment lives there, receiving rent , until they die. So Kline\u2019s Mathias has inherited a very unique situation and he\u2019s not too pleased.<\/p>\n

The plot has some nice reveals and there is one good scene with Kline emoting some troubled past regarding his mother but there is too much posturing throughout the rest of the film. The idea of forgiving and understanding flaws of ones you love is ultimately overshadowed by some overdone romance as the movie devolves into a Hollywood style love affair. The stretch is too thin and makes what good is found easy to forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Engagement Opens Friday, September 19th Landmark\u2019s La Jolla Village Cinemas My Old Lady has the special distinction of being a film that you can tell is based on a play. It happens more often than not when the stage breeds the source material. You can hear it every word. The cadence is rhythmic as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}