Steve Martin Gives Cyrano de Bergerac a Modern Makeover in Roxanne

When I was in high school, one of my favorite television shows was Wishbone, a PBS show starring a Jack Russell Terrier who took the lead in each episode’s 15-minute adaptation of a classic novel. Yes, this was a series designed to encourage literacy in young children, like Reading Rainbow but more plot-driven. But I didn’t care what the intended audience was. I loved the clever way the series toggled between the ordinary, everyday dramas of Wishbone and his family of humans, particularly young teenager Joe and his friends, and the epic adventures found in stories like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Faust, perhaps priming me to readily accept the unusual structure of LOST when I began watching it. Tightly paced and cleverly edited, these episodes riveted me, and they introduced me to several books that I would go on to read for myself.

The most memorable Wishbone introduction for me was Cyrano de Bergerac. This story of a man with a large nose and an eloquent tongue fascinated me, and when the book showed up as an option on my summer reading list a couple years later, it made my decision as to which book to read easy. I’ve seen several films and TV shows incorporating the concept of a linguistically challenged man asking his buddy to furnish him with words to help him court a woman, but usually it’s just a subplot. Last week, I finally got around to seeing Roxanne, the Steve Martin romantic comedy that is entirely based on this play, albeit loosely. While I think I ultimately prefer the short but sweet Wishbone treatment, the 1987 movie, which Martin wrote, is quite enjoyable.

Martin plays C. D., or Charlie, Bales, a small-town firefighting chief. He’s a kind, witty man whose enormous nose is rarely a stumbling block, but he begins to resent his facial structure when he meets Roxanne (Daryl Hannah), a gorgeous astronomer only in town for the summer. These two instantly connect on an intellectual level, but Charlie has pretty much resigned himself to the single life, and whatever hopes he has regarding Roxanne are dashed after she confesses her crush on Chris (Rick Rossovich), a decent but dopey rookie firefighter. After facilitating their first meeting, Charlie can’t simply step back and let the relationship unfold naturally. If he isn’t able to have Roxanne for himself, then he intends to live vicariously through Chris, who is such a bumbler that he seems doomed to completely crash and burn without Charlie’s help.

The bulk of the movie, then, involves Charlie waxing poetic for Roxanne but attributing the words to Chris. In some cases, he tells Chris what to say; in others, he spouts the words himself under cover of night. Mostly, though, he sends letters. Lots and lots of letters. Charlie is a brilliant writer whose florid prose makes Roxanne swoon, but how long can he pull off this deception? And how long will he want to?

While the first half of Cyrano de Bergerac has a largely comical flavor to it, it turns tragic by the end. Martin takes considerable liberties with the screenplay in that regard, furnishing a much more Hollywood-style happy ending. Additionally, his characters are not nearly as chaste as the ones written by Edmond Rostand. There is plenty of innuendo in this movie, along with an implied hook-up or two. The core relationships are pretty similar, however. Chris is a handsome young simpleton, Charlie is his verbose mentor, Roxanne is the lovely woman both men admire. While Chris is pretty likable, it’s immediately apparent that Charlie is a better match for the vibrant Roxanne.

While it’s fun to watch Charlie and Chris try to woo Roxanne together without her catching on, the hands-down best scene in the movie is the bar scene early on in which Charlie, in an effort to humiliate a man who has dared to insult his nose, rattles off 23 more creative ways in which he could have phrased his slight. Martin gets to show off his rapid-fire wit here as his clever jabs fly fast and furious. While most of the comedy in this movie stems from verbosity, there is also some purely visual humor, most notably a scene that finds Roxanne locked out of her house with no clothes. Charlie, Chris and Roxanne drive all the action in the movie, but small roles by Fred Willard, Shelly Duvall and John Kapelos add to the humor.

Roxanne is a little bit raunchier than I would have liked, but for the most part, it retains the core of sweetness and celebration of intellectual prowess that is in the original play - which, whether you come to it by way of Steve Martin or Wishbone, truly is a classic.

Hide Yourself from Hokey Horror

I rarely post negative reviews here on Epinions, so I figured I was about due to come up with a movie I can genuinely say deserves a low rating. I caught Hide and Seek on TV one night a while back just as it was starting. If there's one kind of movie I hate, it's horror, but there was nothing else on and my parents and I decided to leave it on for the time being. We wound up watching the whole thing, though I nearly gave up on it several times. Besides being grotesque, it is one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen.

The film stars the usually gorgeous Daryl Hannah as Anne, a most unfortunate woman who spends most of the film looking - and feeling - half-dead and utterly wretched. This is with good reason, as she is kidnapped at the beginning of the film by Frank (Vincent Gallo), a quiet surgeon with a sadistic streak and a fierce fear-driven loyalty to his wife Helen (Jennifer Tilly). Having rendered Helen unable to give birth after a botched abortion, Frank selects Anne to be an unwilling surrogate, intending to keep her chained in the basement until she gives birth.

Though at first Frank seems the movie's villain, it becomes increasingly clear that Helen is the one to watch out for. When she flies at Frank in a rage and bashes him to death with a baseball bat, it seems like a fortunate turn of events for Anne, but in reality Helen is much harder to handle alone than when Frank is there to keep her somewhat grounded.

Watching the film, I was quickly reminded of Misery, though I think that movie was done much better. Hide and Seek is uncomfortable to watch, focusing as it does on one extremely bedraggled woman desperately fighting to stay alive and another who is nothing short of psychopathic. Moreover, she seems to be indestructible and conveniently surrounded by people who are either to stupid or too scared to put an end to her reign of terror. As her hysteria increases and she pursues Anne out of her home to a desolate truck stop and a hospital, the scenarios become more and more absurd. It is Tilly who carries the film, leaving the audience aghast at her freakish antics.

This does not strike me as the type of movie that would have appeared in theaters. It plays like a low-grade made-for-TV movie, complete with gaping plot holes, especially toward the end. While not as patently ludicrous as Critters 3, it is just over-the-top enough that it's never really scary. Seek this movie out for Tilly's psychotic performance, then hide it away where no one will ever see it.