Review, Matt Hudson
8/7/04 1:18 PM
Life Sentence
by Matt Hudson
Posted March 5, 2002
Matt Hudson
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Rating: 8 out of 10 stars
I am a person prone to bouts of almost obsessive nostalgia. Music
usually triggers these fits of wanting to go back, at least for a time, to
when things were different, not always better, but comforting in their
familiarity. But after a soothing round of self-indulgent melancholia from
chasing phantoms buried in my head, reality pushes everything back into
corners of my memory and I get back to living.
Richard Barrow, the main character of Andy Graydon's Life Sentence, has
a similar problem. He is haunted by a novel by a young writer. Back in
1994, B. Rian Garrity wrote a novel named Life Sentence, and it achieved
universal critical praise. Then the writer vanished, not another word seen
or heard. Of course, Richard also has his failing career, frustrated novelist
aspirations, and growing burden of self-denial threatening to overwhelm
him.
Then fate jumps into his lap, almost literally, in the form the mythical
novelist B. Rian Garrity. Richard almost slobbers over the bone he has
been thrown, and in true form of a man seeking anything to save himself,
he decides he will guide the writer to the completion of his long-awaited
second novel.
Sadly, as much as I would love to keep talking about the story of Life
Sentence, I have always taken the view that a review should never give
away the best parts of a film's story. Seeing as this film is not like The
Crying Game, which hinged on one secret, or any other piece of drivel
from the guts of Hollywood where the story takes a backseat to the actors
and special effects, giving up more than a few select tidbits would ruin the
way the film slowly peels itself open until you hit the twisted core. So
what can I say about the story?
Life Sentence is one of the most uncomfortable films I've watched in
recent memory. That's not a bad thing. It is uncomfortable and should be
uncomfortable. You watch characters that you like and want to like
wandering down paths that you know shouldn't be traveled. You see
things happen to characters that leave you with a sense of "Oh, why did
that have to happen, damn it?" Even while I honestly squirmed in my seat
watching the film, I had to see where this would go, and that is what
makes Life Sentence such a good film. You want to follow this to the end,
even though all the warnings and forebodings tell you that it ain't gonna be
pretty.
Page 1 of 2
Review, Matt Hudson
8/7/04 1:18 PM
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Stylistically, the film inhabits a number of places that layer over each
other very nicely. The film begins with a neo-noir narration that pops back
up throughout the running time, and the film has a lot of the air of film
noir. But it doesn't stick just with that. As the movie progresses, the
proceedings take on an increasingly nightmarish quality, like one of those
odd frightening dreams that wakes you up only to leave you wondering if it
really happened. And the two styles crash into each other in the serene
ending that leaves you stunned and oddly delighted. The closest thing I
have ever encountered to this film is Paul Auster's New York Trilogy,
which takes the hard-boiled detective novel and mates it with odd literary
ponderings. Find the books and give them a spin until you can find this
film in release.
Everything in this film works out quite well, and the whole thing is pulled
off by a great cast. Patrick Clear is Richard Barrows, the character who
carries us through the entire film. He smoothly plays the role from
insecure and vaguely lost in the beginning, to the master of manipulation
during the meat of the movie, and still makes Richard likeable enough
that you stick with him emotionally. B. Rian Garrity is taken by Andrew
Rothenberg and presented as a character of great sarcastic cockiness,
yet with one solid blow to his ego, his own insecurities rise to surface,
ripe for the pickings. My personal favorite from the film is Mariann
Mayberry as B. Rian's live-in lover Maddie. Not to say that her
performance outshines the others, which it doesn't, but she plays a
character who maintains an outward sense of restraint with all of the
serious emotions going on inside. Mariann Mayberry gives a stunning
performance that can speak volumes with just the right hesitation before
responding to someone, or in the subtle set of her face when seeing
something that you know the character's brain is at work trying to
understand. By keeping her character tightly reigned, she leaves the
strongest impression in a cast in which even Sanesia Davis-Williams and
Louise Lamson in supporting roles give performances that outshine actors
who are paid millions. Even Natalie West, who used to play Crystal on the
sit-com Roseanne (and I hated her character in that series), provides
some great and much-needed comic relief.
My final take on Life Sentence is that it is another great film that needs to
be put in front of audiences. So much talent and art waiting for someone
willing to distribute all of it. Maybe these filmmakers ought to combine
forces and pull a road show festival, sort of like the old days of marketing
the exploitation flicks to drive-ins. There are enough art-house theaters
dotted over the country that would give the films plenty of exposure. It's
probably not even possible, but it's still an idea.
Matt Hudson truly believes that the popularity of The Matrix is a sure sign of the
final stage of The Apocalypse. A fan of horror, fantasy, and exploitation movies,
Matt contributes film reviews to The Dog Pile on a regular basis.
Contact Matt
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Page 2 of 2
Life Sentence: Indie Filmmakers Do Their Time
by Josh Grossberg
Orson Welles once said, "the enemy of art is the absence of
limitations."
Writer-director Andy Graydon's Life Sentence holds true to
Welles' wisdom.
The film is a thriller with high-art aspirations. It's also a film
crafted out of the extreme adversity of independent movie
making. Tackling these limitations has resulted in a wellreceived debut feature from an aspiring filmmaker that went on
to win the Gold Award for Suspense/Thrillers at the 2001
Worldfest Houston International Film Festival.
Shot entirely on location in Chicago, Life
Sentence is by no means a prison drama,
unless you count the actual shooting of the
film as such (Graydon might agree with
you on this point).
Instead, comparable films like indie auteur
Hal Hartley's genre-defying Henry Fool or
Krystzof Kieslowski's Camera Buff spring
to mind, both intense portraits of failed
dreamers.
Like Hartley's talentless novelist who
suffers from the realization of his own
myriad limitations as a writer, or
Camera Buff's filmmaker whose
obsession with capturing the
world around him through his
camera isolates him from his
community, Life Sentence is a
study of another underachiever.
In this case, our protagonist is
Richard, a washed-up middle-aged
literary editor with aspirations of writing the Great American
novel but who, in the end, fails to come up with the right words.
On the verge of losing his job, Graydon's protagonist however
gets a second shot at success when he's sucked into the life and
voice of a reclusive young writer, B. Rian Garrity. B, as he's
known, has been out of the literary spotlight since his first novel,
Life Sentence, debuted to universal acclaim more than five years
before.
After Richard rescues B from a fall in a coffee shop and takes
him to the emergency room, he meets B's girlfriend Maddie who
sees in Richard a chance to revive B's stalled career.
30
June 2001
Hatching a plan to whip B back into shape, Richard offers B's
girlfriend Maddie safe harbor at his place after she leaves B in a
sudden fit of frustration. Determined to keep B focused on his
writing, Richard keeps the couple apart. Like a warden, Richard
manages to cut off all of B's contact to the outside world,
including Maddie, who is reduced to spying on her lover with
her camera from a distance.
Things get complicated with the appearance of Celeste, a feisty
young street urchin who is in love with B. When B suddenly
stops writing Richard finds he has little choice but to apply even
more cunning to prod the young writer to finish the job.
However his plans backfire when B finally comes clean
about his torturous relationship with Celeste. The
resulting revelation takes Richard over the edge and leads
to some unexpected, tragic consequences for both of
them.
In the end, lacking talent of his own, this over-the-hill
book editor realizes that the only way back to the top is
accepting his own moral corruption. Ultimately his own
spiritual limitations condemn his soul, hence the movie's
title, Life Sentence.
In this way, Graydon's morality tale of a failed dreamer
mirrors Hartley and Kieslowski's protagonists. They are
the tragic romantics blinded by obsessions that they
cannot comprehend. They strive for ultimate
control over the people and the world around
them, but at what cost? They fail in the end.
Just as Life Sentence symbolized the jailhouse
of a failed dreamer, it also ironically came to
symbolize the creative prison the writerfound himself in during the film's
TOP: Director Andy Graydon
production.
rehearses his actors.
BOTTOM: Andrew Rothenberg
plays writer B. Rian Garrity.
Handcuffed by the usual constraints
afforded the crew of an independent
film -- miniscule budget, borrowed film equipment, a movie
minus a castmember, missing locations, and on-set quarrels,
Graydon managed to turn those limitations to his advantage to
make an award-winning movie.
Along with producer C. Webb Young, the duo set about filming
Life Sentence during a particularly sweltering Chicago summer.
Their goal: make an art-house film with the potential to speak to
a broader commercial audience via positive word-of-mouth.
"It was made much more in the vein of the quality art film as
opposed to exploiting a certain popular market demographic,"
said 30-year-old director Andy Graydon.
Their debut feature, little did Graydon and Young realize all the
obstacles and pitfalls they'd have to face along the way to bring
their vision to fruition.
"One major role had still not been cast when we began
shooting," noted the filmmaker. "Then in the first week we were
running behind by 25%. My vision for the film had not yet met
productively with real-life constraints. That was a huge
challenge."
"We were figuring this out while we were doing it," said Young,
30, who's since gone on to successfully produce three lowbudget features. "We formed this company and I spent a lot of
time trying to raise money before the shoot and that took up a lot
of time. I think the more people you can have on board to help
you, the better."
And the help they got mainly came from a troop of dedicated
Northwestern University graduates, both grad and undergrad,
whom they nabbed at the beginning of the summer when they
were eager to jump on board an ambitious production.
Graydon addressed some of the serious adversities he and his
crew struggled through during their hectic 24-day shooting
schedule. "It is the director's job to say we're gonna stop the
production until you figure out these lines and do it right…
whereas in the making of this very independent film in which I
also held one of the purse strings, I found myself saying we
should compromise this because we need to get the movie done
in 20 days."
"There are times where I have to be selfish and say I think this is
important and cannot be cut, and let people yell at me for an
hour," added Graydon. "You have to say no. You have to also
know where the battle lines get drawn."
While it was an intense and somewhat grueling experience
filming in the mid-summer heat under barebones conditions, the
filmmakers' no frills struggles perhaps exemplify what it really
means to be independent: telling your story no matter how the
odds are stacked against you.
So just how does this story end?
"We are fairly realistic right now after having screened the film
and gotten good responses from a variety of people," says
Graydon. "We have a great handle on what the film is like and
how it fits into the market."
Despite the many difficulties experienced along the way, the
filmmakers are hoping for more accolades as they take their
hard-fought vision on the road to more festivals. As the Life
Sentence's tagline suggests, "The pen is a double-edged sword."
Indeed, the same would apply to the production. Welles would
be proud.
Josh Grossberg writes for E! Entertainment Online
June 2001
31
Variety
Life Sentence
Joe Leydon
May 18, 2001
Director Andy Graydon grabs attention with an intriguing premise and a
palpable sense of foreboding throughout first half of "Life Sentence."
Somewhere around midway point, however, things start to unravel, and
suspense gives way to tedium, then confusion. Initially promising pic devolves
into fodder for homevid bins.
Even so, there's something undeniably fascinating about symbiotic relationship that
develops between Richard Barrow (Patrick Clear), a burnt-out, middle-aged
Chicago book critic, and B. Rian Garrity (Andrew Rothenberg), a brilliant but
unstable young author. Five years earlier, Garrity's first novel was greeted with
universal raves. Since then, however, he's been too busy boozing, and too
immobilized by writer's block, to even begin a follow-up book. Slowly,
insinuatingly, Barrow worms his way into Garrity's life, taking on the roles of
editor and mentor while contriving to remove "distractions" -- like Maddie
(Mariann Mayberry), the writer's amazingly patient girlfriend. Early on, it becomes
obvious that neither Garrity's novel nor Graydon's pic is likely to have a happy
ending. Unlike Garrity, however, Graydon relies on an unconvincing plot twist and
a few melodramatic flourishes to wrap things up.
Copyright © 2001 Reed Business Information
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