Unnecessary Characters

Rating: 5/10 (10 February 2007)

This is one-half of a great movie. I say this because the film's second half is marred by the unfortunate appearance of tacked-on characters who seem to serve no other purpose than to give face time to a few actors and actresses, all of whom I hope paid for the privilege of being in this movie.
Especially grating are the appearances of Geraldine James as Gandhi's adopted daughter Meerabaham and Candice Bergen as a photographer (in the film's last 40 minutes no less.) James's only function in the film is to speak softly and worshipfully and to gaze at Kingsley's character for several seconds at a time. Why on earth her inclusion in this film was seen as necessary totally escapes me. She has nothing of substance to say and just takes up space. Bergen's photographer is even worse- her appearance so late in the film simply makes no sense unless Bergen slipped some money under the table to the producer. She actually subtracts from the film by playing Candice Bergen rather than any character the viewer could possibly care about.
I wont include Martin Sheen in this group, because he does appear early in the film, then vanishes for roughly two hours before reappearing near the film's end. However, I found it striking that the makeup crew was apparently not informed that some thirty years were supposed to have passed between meetings of Sheen's character and Kingsley's. Sheen's character really ought to be pushing seventy by the time he reappears, but he doesn't look a day past fifty.