Blood and Wine (1996)
Directed by: Bob
Rafelson
Written by: Nick
Villiers and Alison Cross & Bob Rafelson.
Starring: Jack Nicholson (Alex), Stephen
Dorff (Jason), Jennifer Lopez (Gabriela), Judy Davis (Suzanne), Michael Caine
(Victor), Harold Perrineau (Henry), Robyn Peterson (Dina), Mike Starr (Mike).
Blood and
Wine felt like a throwback back in 1997 when I first saw it – and feels even
more so like one now. It was basically ignored when it came out, and sadly,
hasn’t gained much of a following since. It has a feeling like what it is – old
pros, who know how to make an old school crime picture, doing so with skill and
intelligence. It feels in many ways like a film from the 1970s – and that is
probably true, since it reteams Nicholson with director Bob Rafelson, adds in
Michael Caine for good measure. There is no ironic detachment to the material
here – everyone takes it seriously, which didn’t fit in to the post Pulp
Fiction world in which it was made, and sadly, doesn’t seem to have come back
around yet. It’s just an expertly crafted sun drenched noir.
The film
takes place in Florida, and centers on Alex (Nicholson) – a dealer in fine
wines, whose business and marriage are both failing. His wife, Suzanne (Judy
Davis) is an alcoholic – and is angry at Alex, and is more than justified in
that anger. Her son Jason (Stephen Dorff) hates Alex – but cannot get the old
man to fire him, which is what he wants because he wants to spend all his time
fishing. Alex is having an affair with a Cuban nanny, Gabriela (Jennifer Lopez)
– who works for a super rich couple that is also one of Alex’s best clients.
They are also the owners of a very valuable diamond necklace – worth over $1
million. Alex recruits career thief Victor (Caine) to help him steal it. The
crime itself is fairly easy. Everything that happens after gets bloody and
complicated – in ways in which I won’t spoil.
There is
something that happens when Nicholson works with Rafelson that brings out the
best in him (and I say this without having seen two of their collaborations –
The Postman Always Rings Twice and Man Trouble). Nicholson doesn’t really rely
on his normal bag of tricks – he doesn’t smirk or charm his way through these
movies, doesn’t rely on his natural movie star charisma. He remains committed
to his characters. Alex is an interesting character in many ways – and
Nicholson suggests a lot about him that is in the backstory, but not explicit.
We don’t see him, say, struggling with the business, struggling in his
marriage, meeting and falling for Gabriela, thinking about committing the
theft, or meeting and hiring Victor to do the job with him – all that happens
before the movie already starts. Most movie would spend most of their time on
that downfall, then climax with the theft – this one has the theft done by the
end of act one. It’s interesting to watch Nicholson in this mode – he is an
asshole to be sure, a terrible husband, and not much of a stepfather, but
there’s enough here to suggest that wasn’t always the case – that he was a man
who worked hard, and just failed. Now he’s approaching retirement age, and has
nothing to show for it. Caine’s Victor is the same way – chain smoking his way
through the movie, and prone to coughing fits, he knows he is dying – he just
wants to die in style, not in some cheap hospital or prison ward. He has also
had a long career – and has nothing to show for it.
The first
act does a good job of establishing the characters – and their relationships to
each other. They are all basically a series of two-handers – Nicholson and
Caine, Nicholson and Dorff, Nicholson and Davis, Nicholson and Lopez, Dorff and
Davis, Dorff and Lopez, etc. There are secrets and lies throughout, and in many
ways each character is making cold calculations about what is best for them. I
wouldn’t blame you to be a little creeped out by the age difference between
Nicholson and Lopez – he was 59 at the time, she was 27 (and playing younger) –
and yet both actors do a good job of explaining why they are together in their
interactions. Nicholson’s motivations are easier to grasp – she’s Jennifer
Lopez – but Lopez makes Gabriela more complicated then she first appears. She
is a survivor – and smart about it. She came from Cuba with nothing, has a hard
time getting and keeping a job because of her status, and grasping onto
Nicholson sees someone who may be able to give her the things in life she wants.
When it starts to become clear that maybe he can’t – that he isn’t the success
he makes himself out to be – she recalculates her options, and considers Jason.
He’s younger than her, and naïve in many ways, and she can manipulate him. What
she doesn’t want is to end up stuck sleeping on the couch at her cousins
anymore. I do wish that the screenplay hadn’t leaned so far in with Lopez’s
Cuban accent, and somewhat broken English – although perhaps it wouldn’t be as
noticeable if it weren’t Lopez. Davis and Dorff are playing characters that are
mainly just pawns for the other characters – although at least Dorff realizes
this by the end and doesn’t want any part of it.
Blood and
Wine is ultimately one of my favorite type of neo-noirs – the sun drenched
kind. The noirs from the classic period are always so dark, taking place in the
shadows, in the rain, at night, on the means streets of New York, L.A.,
Chicago, etc. But when done right, these tropical, sun baked noirs work
wonderfully well – contrasting the darkness of the subject, with these
beautiful, sunny locations. Rafelson has said that he considered Blood and Wine
to be a kind of unofficial end of a trilogy with Nicholson started with Five
Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens – with Nicholson first playing a
son, then a brother, and now a father. I’m not quite sure I buy that (Nicholson
isn’t really a father here – and it doesn’t play that big of a role in the
narrative). I prefer to think of this is another stop on Rafelson’s tour of
America – from California and Washington state in Five Easy Pieces, to Atlantic
City in The King of Marvin Gardens, to the south in Staying Hungry, to small
town America in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Rafelson seems to have made a
career out of traversing America, and finding angry, lonely bitter people who
seem to resent the fact that they haven’t gotten the American dream they were
promised. Blood and Wine is a genre picture to be sure – but all of that is
still there.
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