December 3 1999

De Niro and drag in the same movie

This buddy film can be enjoyable, despite the holes in the plot

Philip Seymour Hoffnen, es Busty Rosiy, gives therapeute singinglessons to her downstairs neighber Welt Keenis (Robert De Nite).

MGM

Flawless

Directed by Joel Schumacher Metro Goldwyn Mayer In wide release

Reviewed by Michelle Tomko

Just when you think you've seen every possible combination of characters in buddy movies, movie mogul Joel Schumacher gives us a conservative stroke patient and a pre-op transsexual drag performer in Flawless.

Actually, the movie plays out much like As Good as it Gets, in which a loner becomes a helper to a queer neighbor, except in this case the gay man is the caretaker, and the Helen Hunt waitress character is replaced by a private dancer. But going to Hollywood for originality is like going to India for ground chuck.

De Niro plays Walt Koontz, a retired security guard that has a stroke while trying to be a Good Samaritan in his building. It is suggested by his physical therapist that Walt take singing lessons to improve his speech. Refusing to leavethe building, Walt's only recourse is to take singing lessons from the drag queen upstairs named Rusty.

This movie has a good ensemble cast. Skipp Sudduth, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and Kyle Rivers are just a couple of names that stand out from their backdrop assignment in this slice-of-life drama.

Robert De Niro wasted no time off the set. He studied the tango for two months with choreographer Paul Pellicoro, spent weeks observing stroke victims, and designed mouthpieces and a lead-soled shoe to enhance his performance. But less is more. These things really got in the way of the performance. De Niro's paralyzed face looked more like he had a dentist's X-ray film in his mouth. His physical work more closely resembled a potato sack race than the struggles of a newly paralyzed guard. His tango could have used a few more lessons too. But De Niro is like pizza:

Even when it's bad, it's still pizza.

De Niro and co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman are responsible for some tender and funny moments in the piece. They have some great chemistry and are both naturally talented in the art of improvisation, as we see especially in the scenes at the piano (which, incidentally, Hoffman did not know how to play prior to shooting the film).

"There's pretty much nothing that I would do

behaviorally or vocally or

in my mind that is any-

thing like Rusty, the only thing I could connect with

is the emotional journey.”

According to music director Bruce Roberts, "Philip didn't play at the beginning, but when we got to shoot, you couldn't pull him away from the keyboard. We actually used his live playing." However, Hoffman proved to be more adept at the keyboard than the nuances of a drag queen.

Piano is not the only thing that Hoffman had to study before he could effectively play Busty Rusty. Part of the journey for the actor was visiting clubs in New York with fellow cast member Scott Allen Cooper, who plays Ivana, a fellow drag performer, watching several tapes and spending hours in make-up before getting to shoot.

"There's pretty much nothing that I would do behaviorally or vocally or in my mind that is anything like Rusty," said Hoffman. "The only thing I could connect with is the emotional journey."

An actor saying this is like a Navy captain who can't connect with the water.

Here Hoffman identifies the flaw in his performance. We see him acting the part, as opposed to being Rusty. This is a big problem, since Rusty's mantra is: I'm not a drag queen, I'm a woman. Hoffman seems the most comfortable in the scene when he is in a suit and tie after his mother's funeral. We even see a glimpse of the awkward character he played in Todd Solondz's Happiness.

So why did director Schumacher cast a straight man as the lead in a drag queen movie?

"I realized that I needed a real actor." Schumacher said. We all can imagine the difficulty of finding a gay actor in Hollywood. The only thing harder would be finding corruption in politics.

The real flaws in Flawless fall on producer, writer and director Joel Schumacher. He understands the term flawless the way Alanis Morrisette understands the word ironic. His actors did the best they could with a predictable script full of dated queer clichés. Hoffman is forced to say things like: "Life's a bitch, so I became one," and a myriad of other bumper sticker quotes. There are also unrealistic scenes at the local lesbian and gay center where drag queens face off in Sharks and Jets fashion over a big drag competition that we never get to see. Any dykes you see here are purely set decoration.

All in all, you have a hip feel-good movie with high production values. If you can manage to hang on among the loose ends and navigate the minefield of holes in the script, you'll have an enjoyable evening. You've seen worse. Besides, how often do you get to see Robert De Niro in a drag queen movie?