Mister Buddwing

source: Mister Buddwing

Mister Buddwing

Other commentators are probably right to say that the plot is totally unlikely, poorly acted and perhaps badly directed. I am no film critic hence do not judge the film from a critical point of view. Yes, I was aware, while watching the film on TV, that it was completely unlikely, that people just don't act in such a way. Yet I found it compelling, enjoyable, enthralling, haunting. I just had to watch it to the end, and this doesn't happen to me very often these days. I see the film as an allegory of a man who has lost sight of himself after a personal traumatic drama and is in search of himself through various unlikely encounters, mostly intriguing women. I enjoyed the film as I would enjoy a haunting melody. I guess I see in it an allegory for my own condition.

Great jazz score. Memorable dialogue. Fascinating characters. Even small parts are interesting. Vulnerable male lead (unlike cardboard cutouts). Ladies with personality. Wonderful performances even by bit players. Gorgeous black and white photography. New York streets. Camera that isn't afraid to dare. Pure gold performance by Pleshette as an ever-aspiring thespian. This movie IS a jazz score. It is about life, midlife and city life. It's suspenseful, but the suspense isn't its central element. Mood is. This movie is perfect from every angle, in every department. Not much more can be expected from images on a screen. A movie with an attitude that presents life as style. Voila.

Amnesiac James Garner tries to sort out his apparently complicated past. This adaptation of Evan Hunter's book "Buddwing" (and retitled "Woman Without a Face" for its overseas release) looks terrific but is a distressingly unsatisfying soaper. Photographed by the great Ellsworth Fredericks in crystalline black-and-white on autumnal New York City locations, the movie is saddled with an annoying plot which never comes together. Full of top talent, but only Suzanne Pleshette gives off some heat as a savvy actress. The film attempts to be modern and risqué, but the writing is so ham-handed and the direction so self-consciously arty that the final result just seems alienating and unabsorbing. *1/2 from ****