[
L'ARGENT screens Saturday March 10th at 5:15 pm and Sunday March 11th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
I just happened to watch (because I found it in a free giveaway bin, or the trash or something) a VHS of previous generation's awful "steamy erotic psychothriller" entitled
FINAL ANALYSIS with Richard Gere. Maybe I shouldn't even have told you the title. Point is, Uma Thurman and Kim Basinger play troubled sisters. Get this: Uma Thurman is supposed to be the ugly one. No, there's no Rick Baker or Stan Winston or Westmore family makeup magic to hag her up, it's young Uma Thurman all right. And she's supposed to be the ugly one. The Kim Basinger character has an affair and gets naked with forensic shrink Richard Gere, which is very brave, because he's so ugly too, you know. I'd have to check the gossip offscreen, but I think Gere was married at the time to the very ugly Cindy Crawford.
It's a personal choice, I suppose (probably governed by whether one has a lifetime pass to the Cedar Lee or something), if one watches Hollywood high-kitsch like FINAL ANALYSIS just to take a break from excellent world cinema like Robert Bresson's L'ARGENT or if watching L'ARGENT makes a home remedy after sitting through a FINAL ANALYSIS. Either way, the message is, check out L'ARGENT, if you can, just to remember that not all movies are car chases, CGI and Uma Thurman cast as the homely one.
