Subject: REVIEW: PHENOMENON (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Scott Renshaw)
Date: 1 Jul 1996 15:10:51 GMT

PHENOMENON
                       A film review by Scott Renshaw
                        Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw

Starring:  John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duvall.
Screenplay:  Gerald DiPego.
Director:  Jon Turtletaub.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Opens Wednesday, July 3 in wide release.

     Jon Turtletaub has a quality as a director which seems to be fairly
uncommon lately:  patience.  He had surprise successes with his last two
films, 1993's COOL RUNNINGS and last year's WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, and
generally those successes were attributed to the Disney underdog formula
and Sandra Bullock's rising star, respectively.  While those factors
certainly played a significant role, I also believe that audiences
appreciated a style which told simple stories simply.  Turtletaub's
direction gave you the impression that he felt he was doing his job best
if he stood back, allowed his narrative to unfold, and didn't draw
attention to himself.  That is a refreshing perspective in an era of music
video auteurs, but apparently it also can be taken a bit too far.
PHENOMENON finds Turtletaub bringing his leisurely manner to a story
which, somewhere along the line, needed a bit more energy.

     PHENOMENON stars John Travolta as George Malley, a simple auto
mechanic in the small Northern California town of Harmon.  On his 37th
birthday, as he is leaving a party at a bar, George receives a rather
unexpected gift:  a flash of light from the sky which literally knocks him
off his feet.  When he rouses himself, he finds that he is a changed man.
He devours book at the rate of three a day, begins experiments in
agriculture and engineering and finds he is able to move objects with a
thought.  The town doctor (Robert Duvall) is unable to explain the
phenomenon, and George's abilities begin to inspire fear and concern in
the people of Harmon.  Only George's best friend Nate (Forest Whitaker)
and a woman named Lace (Kyra Sedgwick) seem able to accept the amazing
abilities which have made George a threat in the eyes of many.

     I had feared that PHENOMENON would be yet another tiresome spin on
"benevolent stranger among us" tales like E.T., STARMAN and last year's
odious POWDER.  The latter was an example of the worst kind, the kind of
film whose sole purpose seems to be to make us feel better about ourselves
for being so much more understanding than the oppressive, narrow-minded
cowards in the film.  There are whispers of that theme in PHENOMENON, but
screenwriter Gerald DiPego's story is much more focused on George's
reaction to the changes in himself than on the reaction of others to those
changes.  John Travolta turns in a strong, textured performance as George,
a man whose mind has become so active that it risks overwhelming him.  He
is like a man who has awakened one morning to find that he now thinks in a
different language; every attempt to communicate with the people who once
were his friends becomes a frustrating ordeal.

     The moments when PHENOMENON does begin to feel like a "benevolent
stranger" film are rare, but they are also rather telling.  There are evil
government types in PHENOMENON who want to study George or use him to
gather foreign intelligence, there is an evil doctor (Richard Kiley) who
wants to cut up George's brain while he is still using it, and there is a
scene where a mob starts to turn on George, but Turtletaub only makes a
nodding acknowledgment of these conventions.  The villainous Feds and
scientists are only bit players, not really serving to drive the
narrative, and the "mob" is more like a rather insistent group of
autograph-seekers.  Turtletaub seems uncomfortable with such dramatic
devices, and his sense of restraint is admirable.  The problem is that he
and DiPego really don't provide much in place of those devices to generate
conflict.

     A love story between George and Lace eventually occupies a lot of
time, and it is carefully developed, with Sedgwick playing an abandoned
mother of two trying to recover her faith in men.  It's a perfectly sweet
romance, but it underscores the lack of passion in PHENOMENON; the big
moment between George and Lace has her washing and cutting his hair.  A
film like PHENOMENON demands more moments of catharsis, opportunities to
feel deeply for the plight of the hero.  Turtletaub banks on the rosy glow
of Phedon Papamichael's cinematography, Thomas Newman's jaunty score and
the fine performances of his cast (including a lovably eccentric Forest
Whitaker) to generate the good will needed to carry PHENOMENON across the
finish line.  They carry it remarkably far, but as PHENOMENON neared the
two hour mark, I began to wish Turtletaub had gone for a bit less serenity
and a bit more urgency.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 genius species:  6.

--
Scott Renshaw
Stanford University
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw