A coming-of-age period piece set in post-war America, seen through the eyes of a Jewish teenager? I thought it'd be merely a series of boring vignettes like BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS. Instead, LIBERTY HEIGHTS was interesting, intelligent and fairly original as these things go. The characters were compelling, the soundtrack wonderful (though the score was a little too schmaltzy), and the acting...
Well, the two actors with the most screen time were, in a word, excellent. It was obvious in 1999 that Adrien Brody was bound for stardom (this was first evident in SUMMER OF SAM, released earlier the same year). A terrific, subtle actor, the man oozes understated charm, and the camera loves that beautiful beak of his. (Note to self: Next on my Brody rent list is Soderbergh's KING OF THE HILL. Hope he's actually in the movie, so I won't be disappointed like I was with NEW YORK STORIES.)
But if I had to pick a lead actor among the ensemble cast of LIBERTY HEIGHTS, it would not be Brody. It'd be his onscreen brother Ben Foster (last seen in "Six Feet Under" as the most recent of Claire's boyfriends). This kid (sorry, anyone born in the 1980s is a kid to me) has got some seriously underused acting chops. When he wasn't onscreen I kept wanting the movie to get back to his story, and the wise script had only partly to do with that. Good thing he didn't take the Freddie Prinze route to his career; hopefully this means Foster will always be able to find roles in movies that matter.
While the guys' performances (including Joe Mantegna and even Orlando Jones) were terrific, the women's weren't quite as. Bebe Neuwirth, as the mother was adequate (though it seemed a little odd seeing her as Brody's mom, considering she's only fourteen years older than he and they both had half-nude scenes in SUMMER OF SAM). But the love interests of the brothers, despite being superficially attractive, lacked screen presence and the ability to deliver their lines with conviction. I wasn't surprised to learn from IMDb that one is primarily a singer, the other a model.
[Allow me to go off topic and note, for no reason, that several actors in LIBERTY HEIGHTS have appeared together in other movies:
Adrien Brody & Bebe Neuwirth: SUMMER OF SAM
David Krumholtz & Anthony Anderson: TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME
Kevin Sussman & Gideon Jacobs: WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER
Marty Lodge & Jan Austell: RANDOM HEARTS
What's up with that? These aren't even counting the presumably local Baltimore actors who have been cast in both John Waters and Barry Levinson movies. Does this happen often and I just don't notice it?]
And we're back. As in TIN MEN, Levinson indulges here his fetishistic love for the cars of the '50s (the final shot is of a gleaming white Cadillac in a dealership's showroom). The songs of the era - from James Brown to Frank Sinatra - are used as character development instead of just cheap nostalgia. The script is clear-eyed about what it wants to say about life back then, dealing with bigotry and the effects of a newly integrated society, and doesn't view the past through rose-colored glasses. It just tells it like it was, honestly and without judgment.
One theme of the movie I responded to was how we idealize the object of our affection. It's never nice to realize your Cinderella who looks like a demure Anna Nicole Smith sans vacuousness can turn out to be a boozy nymphet with low self-esteem (like, say, Anna Nicole Smith).
LIBERTY HEIGHTS does have its flaws. The editing could have been smoother (some scenes seem to end before they should), and there feels to be about ten minutes of deleted scenes that may have strengthened the characters' relationships (the only one on the DVD isn't one of them). And I didn't quite buy the details in one sequence concerning a financial transaction. But these imperfections are not major enough to ruin the movie.
7/10
Well, the two actors with the most screen time were, in a word, excellent. It was obvious in 1999 that Adrien Brody was bound for stardom (this was first evident in SUMMER OF SAM, released earlier the same year). A terrific, subtle actor, the man oozes understated charm, and the camera loves that beautiful beak of his. (Note to self: Next on my Brody rent list is Soderbergh's KING OF THE HILL. Hope he's actually in the movie, so I won't be disappointed like I was with NEW YORK STORIES.)
But if I had to pick a lead actor among the ensemble cast of LIBERTY HEIGHTS, it would not be Brody. It'd be his onscreen brother Ben Foster (last seen in "Six Feet Under" as the most recent of Claire's boyfriends). This kid (sorry, anyone born in the 1980s is a kid to me) has got some seriously underused acting chops. When he wasn't onscreen I kept wanting the movie to get back to his story, and the wise script had only partly to do with that. Good thing he didn't take the Freddie Prinze route to his career; hopefully this means Foster will always be able to find roles in movies that matter.
While the guys' performances (including Joe Mantegna and even Orlando Jones) were terrific, the women's weren't quite as. Bebe Neuwirth, as the mother was adequate (though it seemed a little odd seeing her as Brody's mom, considering she's only fourteen years older than he and they both had half-nude scenes in SUMMER OF SAM). But the love interests of the brothers, despite being superficially attractive, lacked screen presence and the ability to deliver their lines with conviction. I wasn't surprised to learn from IMDb that one is primarily a singer, the other a model.
[Allow me to go off topic and note, for no reason, that several actors in LIBERTY HEIGHTS have appeared together in other movies:
Adrien Brody & Bebe Neuwirth: SUMMER OF SAM
David Krumholtz & Anthony Anderson: TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME
Kevin Sussman & Gideon Jacobs: WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER
Marty Lodge & Jan Austell: RANDOM HEARTS
What's up with that? These aren't even counting the presumably local Baltimore actors who have been cast in both John Waters and Barry Levinson movies. Does this happen often and I just don't notice it?]
And we're back. As in TIN MEN, Levinson indulges here his fetishistic love for the cars of the '50s (the final shot is of a gleaming white Cadillac in a dealership's showroom). The songs of the era - from James Brown to Frank Sinatra - are used as character development instead of just cheap nostalgia. The script is clear-eyed about what it wants to say about life back then, dealing with bigotry and the effects of a newly integrated society, and doesn't view the past through rose-colored glasses. It just tells it like it was, honestly and without judgment.
One theme of the movie I responded to was how we idealize the object of our affection. It's never nice to realize your Cinderella who looks like a demure Anna Nicole Smith sans vacuousness can turn out to be a boozy nymphet with low self-esteem (like, say, Anna Nicole Smith).
LIBERTY HEIGHTS does have its flaws. The editing could have been smoother (some scenes seem to end before they should), and there feels to be about ten minutes of deleted scenes that may have strengthened the characters' relationships (the only one on the DVD isn't one of them). And I didn't quite buy the details in one sequence concerning a financial transaction. But these imperfections are not major enough to ruin the movie.
7/10