pbubny-1

You'd never know from this stifling, woodenly acted, tritely written biopic what an electrifying and singular woman Alma Schindler, by all accounts, really was. As portrayed by Sara Wynter, she's got the allure of a dishrag and may as well have "Serial Victim" stamped across her forehead, her complex life story reduced to a series of oversimplified episodes (Girl Meets Artist, Artist Falls for Girl, Artist Turns Out to Be a Self-Absorbed Jerk, and Girl Meets Another Artist). Not only do you get no sense of what a great composer, architect, sculptor and writer ever saw in her, you don't get much of a sense of what she could have possibly seen in any of them. The movie makes the 22-year-old Alma look either cynically opportunistic or oblivious to find anything attractive about this movie's smug, devitalized old-fogy Gustav Mahler (who could never have written the amazing symphonies the real Mahler composed). Walter Gropius, et al. don't fare much better. Something that looks as though it was made for--and rejected by-- Lifetime Network, despite pretty cinematography, sets and costumes. As a then- member of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York, I attended a free pre-release screening in spring 2001--and still wanted my money back!

"The Natural," Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel on which this movie is (very loosely) based, presented a considerably more flinty viewpoint of baseball and its protagonist, the late-blooming Roy Hobbs. A movie true to Malamud's conception has yet to be made, and would probably start with a younger and less iconic actor in the starring role (Hobbs as written by Malamud was in his mid-30s, but Robert Redford's gravity suggests someone a decade older). In its own right, this is an enjoyable baseball fantasy with a nostalgic haze (literally so, in the way many scenes are lit). Randy Newman's score is the best thing about it, playing up the mythical Americana element of the movie. Twenty-three years after I first saw it in a theater, "The Natural" strikes me as a long-form version of the "Morning in America" TV ad campaign that helped propel Ronald Regaan to re-election that same year. No accident that two of the movers and shakers behind this movie were major players in the world of advertising.

Spectacular animation in both macro (multitudes of penguins arrayed on frozen landscapes, zippy underwater action) and micro (the nuances of motion--even down to the flutter of tongues as the birds speak) details make it a must to see this on a large screen. If you have an IMAX theater handy, so much the better. But while the visual splendor is one of the primary attractions here, it's the story, with some unexpected twists and turns, that provides the main interest.

Yes, the basic premise is familiar--an "ugly duckling" (in this case, a penguin named Mumble who dances far better than he sings--in a community where singing is all-important) who rises above his misfit status. And yes, there are plot developments that are never fully explained, and even a moviegoer who has environmentalist leanings (as I do) may find some of the message mongering a little heavy-handed (as I did--but more on that later). Yet the movie has more on its mind than giving us yet another parade of wisecracking animals, and manages to speak its mind within the context of Mumble's journey. Younger moviegoers (and, perhaps, their parents) who have been conditioned by "Ice Age," "Over the Hedge," et al. may find the going a little slow here, but it's possible that like "Shrek," this is a kids' movie that adults can better appreciate. There's plenty of comedy, but with serious underpinnings.

It's interesting that the commentators on this site who seem to be most uncomfortable with the environmental subtext of "Happy Feet" are more likely to pan the movie as a whole. As I said, I found the integration of the ecological theme a little clunky and obvious, but at the same time I thought the movie was a perfectly appropriate vehicle for sending this message, so the disparaging comments may be a matter of shooting the messenger. Those who don't want a little environmentalism mixed in with their singing and dancing penguins may not want to see it anywhere else, either.