Tulip Or Turnip

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2014)

There were many stylish and deep movies made in the '70's with thoughtful plots and acting and poignant soundtracks from The Godfather way down to The Story Of O – to go over the same ground again so soon takes some balls. It has to be special in some way to drag me back to that modern stone age while I still remember it so well, but unfortunately this isn't the film to do it.
Comedy? It's a pretentiously complicated and generally boring tale of conmen, politicians, gangsters, in fact all very similar people and their molls loosely based on fact. Very stylish photography and undeniably wonderful acting by all the leads doesn't help me – it's deadly dull, flat, stale and unprofitable from start to finish. The story is so tedious and the comedy is so grim that what should be interesting is not and it just left me cold. So what if people wore big curlers, were suspicious of microwaves and phones had wires way back then; now film itself is redundant, audio sound is so perfect but there's nothing new worth hearing and soon we'll be able to converse with our coffee cups. As the Kinks sang in 1977 Life Goes On! The whole enterprise was probably aimed at the billions of people who have no pre-digital experience at all, billions who it must be hoped have more patience than me. Wasn't there any room for the Eagles' Desperado or one of Dean Friedman's songs or hairdo's? Or more to the point the Who's Won't Get Fooled Again or even better, Let's See Action?! I recall the Duke Ellington band's classic question posed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956, not on the original LP shown so lovingly in this film though but just after the second Jeep's Blues on the 1999 CD release: Tulip or turnip/rosebud or rhubarb/fillet or plain beef stew – tell me dreamface/what am I to you? Tulip Jennifer Lawrence's great performance is perhaps the only reason to watch this - but even a quick snog between her and Amy Adams can't save this overall from being a Prize Turnip.
I'd be surprised if the DVD isn't remaindered and if it's ever on the telly more than an obligatory twice in the next ten years. It definitely is a well made film but presumably mainly for self-declared clever and arty people and not me; for this even to be in the running for Awards only tells me some hustling has been going on.