When life imitates the soapies

Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter
Music by Wynton Marsalis
Screenplay by William Boyd, based on a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa
Directed by Jon Amiel
Starring Peter Falk, Barbara Hershey, Keanu Reeves
Reviewed by Ulrike Erhardt

Peter Falk has done it again. Looking even shabbier than Colombo, he plays Pedro Carmichael, a brilliant but eccentric writer of radio soap operas. He also slips into all kinds of other roles, most notably a dilapidated French maid.

Life and art become explosive when they feed on each other. This happens when Carmichael imitates life in his radio soapies by spying on Martin Loader, the 21 year-old aspiring writer (played by Keanu Reeves) who falls in love with Julia, his 35-year-old aunt by marriage (Barbara Hershey).

While Julia, a realist, knows that she has to say farewell to reason to get romantic with Martin, he has to learn how to face reality if he doesn't want to self-destruct. That's where Carmichael steps in and puts them through paces worthy of his radio characters.

In this blend of life and fantasy, there is never a dull moment. After realising that there was method in this madness and that I wasn't supposed to know whether life imitates art or vice versa, I had a great time. Great performances all around, especially from Barbara Hershey whose zest for life is topped only by Colombo coming out of the closet — even if he is not quite the dwarf-like, mesmerising Merlin character of Mario Vargas Llosa's novel.

When Hollywood reverses the dream fabric and shows us life, it causes all kinds of confusions. And although the outcome is entertainment rather than art, I believed Carmichael when he said, "If life is really shitting on you, the best umbrella to take is art".

From GLW issue 50