The Object of Beauty (1991)

hyped garbage

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

John Malkovich and Andy McDowell star in "The Object of Beauty," a 1991 film directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.Malkovich and McDowell play Jake and Tina, an unmarried couple (she's getting a divorce) who love to travel, stay in beautiful hotels, call room service, and go to lovely restaurants. Just one problem: Jake is in commodities and the cocoa shipment he's heavily invested in is being held up, and he's broke. The hotel wants their money. His credit card is declined at dinner. He is able to give the restaurant a check, but if the bank refuses to pay the check, it will bounce.Jake eyes one of Tina's gifts from her husband (Peter Riegert), a small Henry Moore statue, worth a fortune. She won't agree to let him sell it. Finally she suggests that if it were stolen, they could collect on the insurance. She asks a good friend Joan (Lolita Davidovich) to keep the statue for her should she ask her to do so. Joan agrees.When the statue appears to be missing, Jake thinks Tina took it. But Tina didn't. It appears that the statute was actually stolen. The hotel and insurance company start an investigation, and, seeing Jake's financial problems, don't really believe him.Amusing comedy fueled by a wonderful performance from John Malkovich, who is very funny, especially when he's lying on a bed composing his own obituary, and during a phone call to his parents where he wants to borrow money but ends up not asking for any. Andie McDowall is sweet and beautiful as Tina, who wants to be taken care of but realizes she's in the relationship for more than that.Very charming and stylish comedy, not a laugh out loud one, but a sophisticated one that has some warmth underneath it.

The object in question is a pint-sized Henry Moore statuette, owned by shallow sophisticate Andie McDowell and appraised at $35,000, an amount in many ways even more beautiful to its owner than the item itself. Especially when McDowell and her 'husband' (played to haughty perfection by John Malkovich) find themselves at a fiscal disadvantage while living beyond their means in a posh London hotel. In the vernacular of the upwardly mobile, they aren't 'fluid', and when the statuette disappears they immediately accuse each other of plotting to collect the insurance value. The film is an underhanded, cynical, satirical poke at American materialism, pointless in the end because nothing is resolved. But the plot itself is secondary to the characters (ugly though they are), and rarely have two actors been better suited to their roles: McDowell's poor little rich girl routine is by now second nature, and Malkovich captures all the self-absorbed boredom of the ersatz upper class with his languid voice and steady reptilian gaze.

I particularly have to disagree with a couple of reviews which see the deaf mute maid as unsympathetic, selfish and idiotic. She is the movie's emotional core, and the only character who has a true arc. Yes, she commits a selfish act, but she returns the statue when she realizes it was as wrong for her to take the statue from its owners as it was for her brother to take it from her. That is development of a kind the other characters don't have, and admittedly such a lack is a problem with this movie. Before one tosses aside her return of the statue as merely ethical on a childish level, consider what prompted her to take the statue in the first place: her first caress of the earless statue reveals a profound identification with it. In a world severely limited both by physical challenges and her economic situation, her opportunities to see herself as having any sort of beauty have obviously been rare to non-existent. Be certain that this statue is a full-strength totem object for her, rendered with the sensitivity of a master artist's hand. Out of a life so empty, the statue's return represents a genuine sacrifice of self. Then perhaps the "why anyone in this movie does what they do" problem becomes less vexing, at least with regard to one.The movie's major mistake is ending with Jake and Tina, whom one suspects will never really change their habits or lifestyle even if they are talking about it, instead of giving us any idea what's to become of the maid, even (or perhaps especially) on an internal level.

Have you ever been to a party where you dislike everybody? By that, I mean, you can not find one single person whose company you enjoy. This movie is that party!There is not one single redeemable character in this movie, no one you can sympathize with or care about. No one worth spending your time, which means this movie is not worth spending your time.The two main characters are two spoiled, rotten, selfish, moronic individuals without one good character trait I can see. The one character that you would expect to illicit sympathy, the deaf house maid, is also portrayed as selfish and idiotic. Each character's moves throughout the entire movie illicits the following question: "Why would anyone do that?!"If you like this type of party, then enjoy, but if you're like me, throw the invitation away.