State and Main

In “State and Main,” the new comedy written and directed by David Mamet, we get all the joys of a Mamet project: the ensemble cast of gifted actors, the sharp dialogue, the crisp pacing, and the cool visual style. Unfortunately, we also get all the liabilities of a Mamet project: the icy tone, the sense of detachment, and the sharp dialogue, which seems to take the place of characters we can relate to or a story that involves us emotionally. It is puzzling that Mamet would have concerned himself with this Hollywood trifle. I grant that nobody is more fascinated with the lives of moviemakers than moviemakers themselves (far more so than the general public), but I expected that the prickly and bright-to-a-fault Mamet would have known better. There is a reason that movies about moviemaking rarely do well, and that is because the superficial show-biz concerns of a a bunch of emotional cripples don’t speak very well to a larger audience. Hence “State and Main,” for all its cleverness, remains, in the end, less than captivating. Certainly Mamet, a top-rank playwright and A-list screenwriter, is capable of, and produces regularly, work that is far more resonant.

“State and Main” has a Hollywood company descending on the picturesque town of Waterford, Vermont to shoot their film “The Old Mill.” The company, not surprisingly, is full of eccentrics of every stripe. William H. Macy is director Walt Price, egotistical, as directors must be, and struggling to rein in his cast and crew. Alec Baldwin is the libidinous superstar Bob Barrenger, who has a taste for underage girls (as he says, “everyone needs a hobby”), and whose predilections got the company thrown out of their last location. Sarah Jessica Parker is ingénue Claire Wellesley, who suddenly balks at doing her nude scene, even though it is written into her contract. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the screenwriter, Joseph Turner White, whom everyone holds in utter contempt, except when they need him desperately. The luminous Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet’s wife, by the way) is Ann Black, local sage and all-around nice person. David Paymer makes a strong impression as cutthroat producer Marty Rossen. Much of the humor in the picture derives from the culture clash between the Hollywood sharpies and the local yokels, and as a foundation it is not much upon which to build a movie.

The movie people view the locals as hopelessly unsophisticated, although some of the locals turn out to have a bit of the sharpie in them as well. Bob Barrenger, true to form, gets himself into a situation with a young local girl Carla (Stiles), leading to a crisis of conscience for writer White, who must decide whether to save the picture by lying about what he saw, or to tell the truth, sending Barrenger to jail and ruining his own career. White also kindles a romance with Ann, and this subplot is the one nod towards warmth and humanity that Mamet is able to cobble together. Hoffman is a wonderful actor and manages to play White as a sad sack without making him pitiable. The attraction between Joe and Ann (who is engaged to a local jerk of a lawyer with political aspirations) comes across as quite genuine, but by itself is not enough to make the picture memorable. “State and Main” often falls back on hackneyed jokes about meaningless “associate producer” credits, and how insensitive directors are to the needs of their crew. There is also the gag about Waterford’s old mill, which was the main reason the company chose the town in the first place. It seems that the old mill itself burned down years before.

Thus the inevitable question put to White (whose script, remember, is called “The Old Mill”): “does it have to be an old mill?” This plays like a recycled gag from a collection entitled “screenwriter’s worst nightmares,” but I am not sure why anyone who is not a writer would really care. Maybe Mamet thinks that the absurdity of it all transcends the parochialism, or that our infatuation with the movies extends to the making of them. I think he is wrong in this; people like movies because they create characters and situations that engage us. Mamet has a wicked sense of humor, and a finely tuned sense of the absurd, but the issues in which this movie traffics are not ones with whom the average moviegoer is likely to connect. “State and Main” is amusing enough, but for all its cleverness, it can’t escape the fact that it’s still the same old Hollywood clichés. (1/6/2001)