Updated: 16 July 1997

MAD LOVE

A pointless film. It tries very hard to say...hi. That's about it. You can feel the effort, practically hearing the self-important exertions as the theme about the mentally ill among us is never developed.

Drew Barrymore is good as Casey, the mad half of the title. She always manages to remind you of her heritage through the sheer amount of talent she has. It is sometimes clumsily used. She's not perfect, and her directors are not always helpful, but the talent is there, plain as day. The very few genuine moments this film has stem from her. There is a scene where Chris O'Donnell's character, Matt, awakens to find her cutting pictures of eyes out of a magazine and pasting them on every available space in the room. There is actually some tension in this scene. It is her fear, stemming from the fact that she knows that what she's doing is irrational, but she can't seem to help it.

I'm being too harsh on the beginning of this film, which plays out at a nice, leisurely pace, introducing the two star-crossed lovers to each other. It goes downhill once the love fails to ignite onscreen, thus stripping their actions of any conceivably realistic motives. The blame is hard to place.

I still have a hard time figuring out Chris O'Donnell. It's not that he's an offensive actor in any way, like--say--a Woody Harrelson. It's just that he's so completely bland in every show I've ever seen him in. Even in BATMAN FOREVER, in his scenes of angst and anguish, the two emotions were so...so lacking the real thing. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe he's a completely external actor. He ought to try theater. It's harder to spot that particular sort of bad acting from far away. What looks like anguish can sometimes feel like anguish if you're a few rows back.

Joan Allen is very good, again, in her two and a half moments of screen time. This movie may have been better off following the plight of the parents, RANSOM style. I'm not sure that would have attracted the target audience quite as effectively, but it might have made a better movie.

The score, as is usual with movies like this, cannot be ignored. It is half the film, and in your face. This is not always bad. Sometimes it keeps your attention where the movie fails. Otherwise, it, too, is nondescript.

Which, in a word, describes the whole film. It is not without directions it wants to pursue--it merely lets them get away without having been caught. So what you end up with is a film that has a predictable premise, though not without possibilities. Its primary fault lies in not exploring them.