New York Times (23/Jan/2009) - That Guest. He Might Be a Lady Killer
(c) The New York Times (23/Jan/2009) http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/movies/23lodg.html
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Marie Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), The Lodger (2009
That Guest? He Might Be a Lady Killer
Prostitutes are not the only things butchered in “The Lodger,” a spooky story ruined by lumpen dialogue, cloddish performances and a director and writer (David Ondaatje) oblivious to both.
Investigating the hacked hookers — whose internal organs have been removed à la Jack the Ripper — is a Los Angeles detective, Chandler Manning (Alfred Molina), and his rookie sidekick, Street (Shane West). When not distracted by Street’s playful sweater vests, Chandler is obsessively Googling Ripper Web sites and paying awkward visits to his institutionalized wife, who invariably greets him with high-pitched hysteria.
Equally in need of medication is Ellen (Hope Davis), a high-strung housewife who transforms herself from Phyllis Diller to Veronica Lake to serve breakfast to her creamy-voiced lodger (Simon Baker, none creamier). “I must have complete quiet and privacy,” he croons gently. “I write.”
Perhaps he should have tackled the screenplay. Mr. Ondaatje’s witless adaptation of the 1913 novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes (also the basis of the 1927 Hitchcock silent of the same name) leaves his talented cast floundering. Less interested in flushing out the killer than in manipulating the image, Mr. Ondaatje stuffs the screen with scudding clouds, speeded-up traffic and inexplicable lapses into black and white. And though the story jolts to life two-thirds of the way in, its director barely notices: he’s much too busy clinging to an imperiled hooker’s swaying behind.
