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Souler Opposite, The
THE MOVIE:
The 1998 feature film The Souler Opposite is a bit of an oddity. I hadn't heard of it prior to it showing up in my review pile. Written and directed by Bill Kalmenson, who has had a more varied resume as an actor and stand-up comedian than as a filmmaker, The Souler Opposite is an autobiography-fueled romantic comedy that aspires to be the quintessential indie flick but would have probably been more at home as a TV movie.
Which is not a slam at its main actors, all of whom have far more distinguished careers on television and all of whom have been on some of my favorite shows over the years. Christopher Meloni, of Oz and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fame, is the Bill Kalmenson stand-in, Barry Singer. Barry is a struggling comedian whose act is made up entirely of bitter material about relationships. Unsurprisingly, he has trouble in his own love life. His attitude has been set from the age of 16, when his father bought him a prostitute for his birthday. The film opens on this scene in 1972, showing the young Barry (Josh Keaton, who looks amazingly like Meloni) and his friend Robert (Jed Rhein) obsessing over Playboy centerfolds and pondering the question of what percentage of physical beauty would they give up for a girl who really "gets you." Jump cut to twenty years later and Barry answering the question as an adult. He may be older, but his attitude hasn't changed: he wouldn't give up so much. Rather than pour over nudie mags, adult Barry and adult Robert (Timothy Busfield, currently on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) sit in a beachside café and scope out the Los Angeles women, rating them on face and body.
Naturally, Barry is going to meet a girl that "gets him" and she's going to rock his safe little world. One night after his act, a heckler assaults Barry in the parking lot, and a waitress named Thea (Janel Moloney, The West Wing) comes to his rescue. She is as far from Barry's world view as could be: she's a student, into yoga, and politically active (it's 1991, and she's working on Jerry Brown's presidential bid against Clinton). At first, she resists Barry's advances, but when she gives him a shot and finally gets to know him, something between them clicks. His flippant, cynical approach to life often rubs her wrong, however, and both of them have commitment issues. So, there are some speed bumps on the smoothly paved road to romantic bliss.
The Souler Opposite is at its best when it steps away from its razor-thin plot and lets Meloni and Moloney (I know! It's like fate!) spend their scenes alone together, merely talking. Both are such likable performers, they draw things out of the conversations that make you feel the growing affection between them. Christopher Meloni sheds a lot of the posturing from the intense roles he is normally known for, and he throws himself deep into the persona of a stand-up comedian. His need to always be on and the performance tics that come with it remind me of Paul Reiser but with an added shot of testosterone. When he's doing his act, he has way of swaying like he's agitated and about to lash out, something that carries over into his real life when things get out of hand. This precarious anger lends even more weight to how vulnerable Barry becomes. When he opens up to Thea, he really opens up. On the other hand, Thea's character doesn't travel quite so far. She's pretty much the same in the end as she was at the beginning. Janel Moloney plays her with doe-eyed earnestness, juggling the role's alternating confidence and insecurity, but she doesn't necessarily come around to Barry so much as he comes around to her. But then, that might be intentional. At one point, Robert's wife (Allison Mackie) asks how Thea can go with someone who makes his career out of bashing women, and Thea basically says, "I like him. He's funny." She sees the good in Barry long before he sees it himself.
Sadly, Bill Kalmenson doesn't know which side his romantic comedy is buttered on, and he lets the comedy get away from him far too often. There are times when I wished he could have resisted going for a gag, as they aren't his forte and they undermine my attraction to the movie. If we consider the audience's relationship with The Souler Opposite as a parallel courtship to the one on screen, Kalmenson interrupting the hand-holding to go for a joke is not unlike enjoying a nice date until the person you're out with drinks too much and makes an ass of himself. In some cases, it's down to the amateurish direction (the extreme close-ups after Barry gets punched or when Robert is sucking on laughing gas; Barry chasing Thea through Berkeley), and in others, it's just not funny (the guy being hit by a car after the AIDS test). Kalmenson needed a loving but firm editor somewhere along the way, either in the script stage or in the cutting room.
Maybe they could have also gotten him to get rid of that horrendous title, even if it does have story significance. When Barry and Thea go to an astrologist, Barry pushes him to doctor the charts to show that by being on opposite sides of the zodiac star field, the pair are opposites in both the solar sense and the more punny souler sense. It's actually a good story point, as it shows Barry is so invested in the relationship, he's willing to manipulate fate to make it happen. The idea comes up again briefly, but it probably could have been pushed more. Then again, even if was a bigger aspect of the film, The Souler Opposite would still be a bad title. It's just another gag the director should have resisted.
Given a more accomplished hand, The Souler Opposite could have been a better movie. Meloni and Moloney have strong enough chemistry to pull it off, but too often the script strays off message and by the end, it's even too much for the actors to hold together anymore. A nice try at love, but more likely this film is going to be a one-night stand for you and not a long-term relationship.
THE DVD
Video:
The Souler Opposite is presented in widescreen and enhanced for widescreen TVs. The picture quality is excellent.
Sound:
Dolby Surround with French, Spanish, and English subtitle options. The sound quality is good with nice balances. I could always hear the dialogue, even when the rather cheesy jazz score would come on.
Extras:
The only extra is a commentary by writer/director Bill Kalmenson, recorded closer to the time of the original release judging by some of the references to other productions and what the actors have done since the movie. Kalmenson is eager to talk, but like the film, he ranges from interesting to not so much. When talking about the lessons of a first-time director, he does have some insight to share, but when explaining the movie, it actually makes me a little less enamored of The Souler Opposite. Not only does the monologue get quickly repetitive (how many times can he point out the reemergence of the same music cue?), but Kalmenson makes the film sound thematically shallow, speaking in platitudes he learned in acting class that describe the narrative in ways that come off as more perfunctory than heartfelt. I'm also not a big fan of a writer deconstructing his work to reveal what is based on real life and what is not. It's called fiction, you know? Worst of all, Kalmenson commits the cardinal sin of getting lost in his own movie, going silent as he watches it and laughing at his own jokes.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Rent It. Christopher Meloni and Janel Moloney prove they have much more range than what they have shown in their TV roles, and their relationship makes The Souler Opposite worth sitting through. The story often swerves in the wrong direction, however, and while Meloni's character goes through nice changes, the final payoff for the couple feels like it's been shorted. A good film, it's just not going to have a lot of repeat value in your collection.
Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joelle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent projects include the futuristic romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Archer Coe and the Thousand Natural Shocks, a loopy crime tale drawn by Dan Christensen; and the horror miniseries Madame Frankenstein, a collaboration with Megan Levens. Follow Rich's blog at Confessions123.com.
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