Zandalee (1991)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Admirable film.

This is the first of many Nick Cage (or is it Nic Cage?) movie reviews. I'm trying to make a bit of a formula so we have a good standard. I think it'll go something like this:Opening Rant: We start off with an early-90s gem that looks made for TV, but has far too much nudity to play on the Super Station. Director Sam Pilsbury appears to be banished to TV movies after this, although he did direct the critically acclaimed Free Willy III. For whatever reason Zandalee only played in Hong Kong and Italy, which would explain the Chinese menus on the DVD from Netflix.The Plot: Zandalee is married to a former-poet-now-exec who has no attraction to her whatsoever. Enter Nick Cage, long haired, cocaine addicted painter who sweeps Zandalee off her feet... in the other room... while her husband is entertaining guests. She falls for him, he falls for her, husband is unhappy, everybody's dead by the end except Nick Cage, who is very very sad.Favorite Nick Cage Line: "I wanna shake you naked and eat you alive."Favorite Nick Cage Moment: Nick Cage is very upset, strips down to booty shorts, and rubs paint all over his body while screaming. Alternate: Nick Cage shoveling a mountain of cocaine into his lover's vagina as though the cops are at the door and he's gotta hide the stuff.My Impression: Frankly, it was embarrassing to watch. Everybody was trying so hard to act, and obviously had no idea what they were doing. The filming was awkward, the bar scenes were quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and the ADR and sound mixing were typical TV terrible.That wasn't so bad, was it? Far easier to read than Zandalee was to watch.

Recap: Zandalee is a young woman that feels more and more trapped in her marriage with Thierry. Thierry himself is struggling with the death of his father the previous year and has lost his way. He has submerged himself in work, laid of his writing, and Zandalee desperately misses the attraction between them. Into this enters Johnny, and old friend of Thierry's who once were artists in exile together. But Johnny has kept on painting, and just have a day job for the rent. He takes the day as it comes and leaves tomorrow to its destiny. There is an instant raw attraction between Zandalee and Johnny, and they enter into an affair. But Zandalee struggles with her lust to be desired and her conscience and love for her husband. But none of them, not Zandalee, not Johnny and not Thierry can stop the relationships between them to spin totally out of control.Comments: It is set as a thriller. But maybe more a thriller of heart than a normal thriller where it's about life and death, and threat of violence. Not that a thriller of heart can't take on fatal proportions, but the threat comes from a different angle. And it is not really until the second half in Zandalee until the thriller emerges, and even though the foundation for it is laid in the first half, I can't really describe the genre as a thriller then. Much more of a romantic drama than anything else, but with the underlying currents of other genres. The developing thriller is there, but it also has more than a little tint of a sensual erotic kind. Because that is what it is all about, what drives the characters and therefore the entire story. Desire. The need to have, and the need to be.In my opinion it is quite good, definitely a lot better than its current (4.1) rating anyway. It takes its time but it grows a good feeling of suspense, and it handles the erotic part very well, with taste. It is always an integral part of the story, needed to be there to give the story it's needed weight, and I never felt it was an excuse to show a naked breast or anything like that. But unfortunately the climax of the story comes well before the end, and the end itself feels kind of flat, even if in its own way kind of dramatic.The cast is impressive, spearheaded by known actors like Nicholas Cage and Judge Reinhold. But the show is almost completely stolen by Erika Anderson. Beautiful and very adept at acting out the sometimes subtle feelings of desire, she excels were both Cage and Reinhold sometimes goes a bot overboard and become a little rough. Her career afterward is too thin for the talent she shows in Zandalee, I can only hope it is because of her own choices. Also two personal favorites appear in small roles that give some extra edge to the movie, it is Steve Buscemi and Joe Pantoliano.When you're in the right mood this is a very good movie, it could have used another end to get the credit it really deserves.7/10

The movie is not as bad as the overall rating shows. I presume too many people saw it on account of Nicholas Cage and got disappointed. The problem is that the drama does not develop in one direction. It ended as a banal story about adultery culminating in a theatrical suicide and an unconvincing tragedy. Cage (Johnny), the outsider, turned up to be the guiltiest of all. Yet, until the middle the movie had developed around Anderson (Zandalee) and at some point it looked as if the victim of the drama would be exactly Cage who fell desperately in love with beautiful Anderson while she was using him to overcome her frustrations with husband Thierry. That seemed to be the purpose of the two supporting characters: Tatta and the gay shop-attendant who were pushing her into adultery, so as to save her marriage. At some point, either when shooting or when cutting, the concept changed and the triangle lost everything even remotely intriguing.

Nicholas Cage is mis-cast as an irrestistable sex-god/brooding artist who comes to stay with an old friend (Judge Reinhold) and proceeds to VERY unsubtley seduce his wife, Zandalee (Twin Peaks' Erika Anderson). Despite his lank, greasy (thinning) hair, scraggy goaty, boorish manner and an unfortunate fondness for spouting pretentious philosophy, rather than find him hilarious she is inexplicably drawn to him.The only thing that keeps the interest from flagging throughout this film are the strong sex scenes and the gratuitous nudity involving the stunning Anderson, which begins, promisingly enough, before the opening credits have even finished and is sprinkled generously throughout the film. On the downside, you also have to see Judge Reinhold's butt - not such a pretty sight - but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.