Flawed Narrative; Flawed Take on Mental Illness; Great Cate as Kate

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2004)

Martin Scorcese's "The Aviator" is a long movie -- 169 minutes.
A movie that long has got to have a narrative that drives the film from first frame to last, if for no other reason, than to keep viewers from becoming bored.
Will Scarlett get together with Ashley or Rhett, for example? "The Aviator" lacks that narrative drive. There's no one story that propels the film from first frame to last. What there is is a series of episodes, some interesting, some less so. About two thirds of the way through, the film does get boring. You just want it to finish up.
Before that point, there's a lot happening on screen to keep your interest.
There's a lot of money on view here. Hughes' film "Hell's Angels" is recreated. You get to watch World-War-I era biplanes swoop and fight in the sky. You watch Hughes crash land a plane. This scene will no doubt bring to mind 9-11, as it depicts a plane crashing into inhabited buildings.
Best of all, you have Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn. This is one of the most extraordinary performances ever seen on film. Stars are stars because they are unique and fabulous; actors playing dead stars usually waste their time -- you can't imitate their charisma and fabulousness; uniqueness is, by definition, inimitable.
Blanchett incinerates any doubt you may have had about her ability to pull off Kate Hepburn. Looking nothing like Hepburn, she conjures everything anyone ever loved or hated about her -- the attitude, the voice, the accent.
Brava, Cate. She all but renders Kate gratuitous.
Kate Beckinsale and Gwen Stefani, as Ava Gardner and Jean Harlow, respectively, can't touch Cate's performance. Luckily, they are on screen for less time.
There's a great scene, too, where Howard is dissed at a dinner party by Kate's obnoxious, limousine liberal, Connecticut family. The best such scene I've ever seen, as good as Susan Sarandon's "I am working class" from "White Palace." But Cate's performance, and that dinner party, take place in a void. There's no long-line narrative into which they fit, working to bring the movie to a powerful climax.
To the extent that the movie does have a long line narrative, it is a narrative so grim and unappealing that most viewers, if they knew that that's what they were buying a ticket to see, might pass.
The real Howard Hughes was famous for dying an ignominious death, made ugly by his untreated mental illness.
Throughout "The Aviator," there are scenes hinting at Hughes' eventual complete mental breakdown.
For example, Hughes and Hepburn dine out. Erroll Flynn, wonderfully played by Jude Law, visits their table and upsets Hughes' carefully arranged dinner plate. Once Hughes' peas are rearranged, he can't eat. He leaves the restaurant in a panic.
The background of this scene is very lush. Law is as good as Erroll Flynn as Flynn himself. What you are left with, though, is that very creepy, disturbing image of a grown man who is so deviled by undiagnosed, untreated mental illness that he can't finish a meal if one of his peas is moved.
Creepy. Sad. No Exit.
The most the movie comments on this tragedy is to suggest that Hughes' mother made him crazy. This is shameful. For years mothers were blamed for making their children schizophrenic or autistic. These outdated, misogynist ideas wounded innocent people and did not help the mentally ill at all. What was Scorcese thinking? Was he thinking? Scorcese's inability to deal, intelligently, with the theme of mental illness reflects his inability to bring the viewer close to Howard Hughes. I never felt, while watching this big budget, splashy, technically impressive movie, that I was learning a single thing about Howard Hughes. I never felt that I was being brought into his mind, heart, drive, life.
I don't know if this was the fault of the script, or DiCaprio's performance, or Scorcese's direction.
I left this lengthy movie, though, without new insight into Howard Hughes.