No Such Thing (2002)
Directed by Hal Hartley
Written by Hal Hartley
Starring Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Baltasar Kormakur
Release Date March 29th, 2002
Published July 8th, 2002
Director Hal Hartley is known for his unusual, free-form style of filmmaking. When Hartley’s style is really on to something good the result can be brilliant. But when it's wrong it is often massively so. Such was the case of Hartley’s 2001 release, No Such Thing. The film is an absolute catastrophe. It’s a meandering and often pointless feature desperately in search of a purpose.
The film stars the lovely Sarah Polley as Beatrice, a naive young television intern whose fiancée, a reporter, disappears while doing an investigative report in Iceland. Beatrice's Uber-bitch boss, played by Helen Mirren, and credited only as ‘The Boss’, wants to exploit the boyfriend’s disappearance based upon the sensationalistic rumor that a real-life monster killed the TV crew.
Is the monster some sort of legend or does he really exist? Beatrice offers to fly to Iceland to investigate and is given the assignment but on the way there she is nearly killed in a plane crash. Once again, The Boss sees a story she can exploit. The one survivor of the plane crash is her intern so she naturally assumes she will have an exclusive. Beatrice however, refuses to be interviewed so The Boss fires her.
After 2 years under the care of the kindly Dr. Anna (Julie Christie), and with miracle surgery, Beatrice learns to walk again and continues her journey to Iceland where she encounters the Monster. Former Robocop 3 star Robert John Burke is the extremely put-upon monster who would be fine if people would just leave him alone. He isn't as psychotic as he is annoyed, so if killing a couple of people here and there will buy him some peace then he'll kill.
Arriving in the village where her fiance and his crew disappeared, Beatrice is convinced to drink herself into a stupor by the locals. Then, they strip her and leave her as an offering to The Beast who’d really rather be left alone than have to kill anyone. From there, Beatrice and the Monster form an unusual bond, which leads them to New York and the media spotlight and inklings of the monster’s origin.
If my plot description is convoluted you should see the movie. I've seen more coherent storylines in untranslated original language anime cartoons. Hal Hartley both wrote and directed No Such Thing and he appears to want to make a statement about our over-saturated media. However, Hartley tells the story in such a way that he is just beating the audience over the head with his own personal dislikes regarding the media.
The film’s resolution, if you could call it that, is an annoyingly stupid metaphor, a statement about our society that is so obvious I'm stretching to call it a metaphor. The dialogue practically screams what Hartley should be saying much more quietly. Media bad. No subtlety, no thoughtful statement about how consumer society and a 24 hour news cycle have combined to create a poisonous public discourse. No, No Such Thing is basically Hartley shouting in your ear, MEDIA BAD!
Not even the incredible Sarah Polley can make a dent in the mess that is No Such Thing. In this film she's called upon to dull her best features, her wry intelligence and sharp wit in service of Hartley’s hammer blow approach to metaphor. Would you tell Meryl Streep not to do an accent? Then don't tell Sarah Polley to not be acerbic. Polley, when she was acting, before she moved to the director’s chair, was one of our sharpest actors and seeing her be dull in No Such Thing is a major letdown.
I will say this for Hal Hartley, when he fails he fails spectacularly. No Such Thing is quite clearly a swing for the fences. Unfortunately, he struck out.
