Review: Dead Again

We get two timelines here; In 1940s LA, a bearded, slightly-accented Sir Kenneth Branagh stars as Roman Strauss, an expat-German composer/conductor who is arrested and convicted of the murder of his wife Margaret (Emma Thompson). He had apparently accused her of having an affair with an American reporter (a sleazy-looking Andy Garcia). Roman claims he’s innocent right up to his execution. In present day L.A., Branagh again appears as a slick PI given the task of identifying a woman (Emma Thompson yet again) who has no memory or voice. The investigation leads him to an eccentric antiques dealer and hypnotist (Derek Jacobi) who puts Thompson through hypnosis, thinking that a past trauma may be the key. Under hypnosis, Thompson (who eventually regains her voice) has visions of Roman and Margaret that she just can’t shake, making her suspect that Branagh (who looks like Roman, naturally) is going to kill her, despite the two getting closer together. Wayne Knight turns up as Branagh’s shonky journo pal, Hanna Schygulla appears in the flashback scenes as Roman’s housekeeper, and Robin Williams has a cameo as a bitter, disgraced psychiatrist who now makes ends meet working in a supermarket.

 

When I first saw this film, I thought it was one of the worst films I’d ever seen. It was 1991, and I was eleven, so I recently decided to give it another go. Nope, it sucks alright. I bet it’s Shirley MacLaine’s favourite movie, though. Directed and starring Kenneth Branagh (“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”, “Hamlet”, “Henry V”) and scripted by Scott Frank (“Little Man Tate”, “Malice”, “Get Shorty”, “Minority Report”), it’s an overblown, overcooked, awfully silly, and egotistical film that is like a crap blend of “The Seventh Veil” and “Song of Love”. Branagh is definitely interested in 40s melodrama and psychodrama, as shown in the B&W inserts, but it’s all style and name-dropping. It’s not necessary to add the B&W, we can tell the difference between flashback and present day by the facial hair and different accents.

 

Meanwhile, there is way too much focus on a romance that involves both Branagh and Emma Thompson (radiant, but having a rare ‘off’ day) being in love with the same person: Kenneth Branagh. Like a lot of real-life couples, they show little chemistry here and were a lot better in “Much Ado About Nothing”. Branagh, with his Olivier-esque fascination with Germanic accents is unbearable self-satisfied and mannered in dual roles, though his American accent for the main character is pretty spot-on. Poor Thompson is saddled with a character who is mute early in the film, and has to resort to facial mugging, and she seems far too ‘modern’ (despite her subsequent period piece roles) and jarring in the B&W scenes. Her relationship with Branagh in the film moves far too quickly, and her character starts to talk all too suddenly. Past lives or not, I just wasn’t buying it.

 

Robin Williams has a non-comedic cameo, but anyone could’ve played his role. He’s appropriately sleazy and bitter, but the role is nothing much. The best work by far comes from Derek Jacobi (The Crane brothers’ favourite actor, y’know) and Andy Garcia, who are both perfectly cast, and Wayne ‘Newman!’ Knight is also amusing in a small, colourful part. Miriam Margolyes, however, has a very silly, baby-voiced cameo appearance that is just plain bonkers (And why so many poms with Yank accents? Why set this in America?). Equally silly and far, far too melodramatic is the Golden Globe-nominated score by Patrick Doyle (“Henry V”). It’s dynamic but way too much, as was the case with his score for Branagh’s “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” which was similarly egotistical, melodramatic, and overblown.

 

I like a good melodrama or psychodrama, but this is an awful one, largely because it thinks it’s so high-brow and super freakin’ awesome, which just makes you realise it’s schlocky B-stuff with its head up its arse. I just don’t get the appeal of this stupid, wannabe masterpiece. It’s not the material I object to, it’s the drearily self-important, yet entirely overblown treatment that offended me. Branagh (who, as usual, wants to be seen as the modern Olivier- he would eventually play the man very well in “My Week With Marilyn”, of course) seems to think he has made “Citizen Kane” at times here (check out the scene with an elderly Andy Garcia), and it’s not. No, not even close, Mr. Branagh, you smug bastard. One murder scene does appear to rip off “Psycho”, though. You’ll know it when you see it, and it’s entirely unnecessary. If it weren’t for the egotism, you’d swear this overdone nonsense was a botched Brian De Palma (“Body Double”, “Raising Cain”) film.

 

Alternately ridiculous (the finale is eye-rollingly histrionic) and boring, this is one of the most overrated, pretentious films I’ve ever seen. But I seem to be in the extreme minority here.

 

Rating: D-