The Paperboy

The Paperboy is an attempt at a southern gothic, basically. It is rich with dripping moss and cicadas, humid days and bloody murder. Those moments in which you most feel you are really in the south, you are really luxuriating in heat and grit, are its best moments. You get the dialogue, by instinct, rather than by clarity of diction. That's exactly how it is in the south. I love the way the young white boy and the young black maid who works for his father are friends. This is Faulknerian; this is classic. I love the way Matthew McConaughey sits in a grubby room and sweats. He glimmers and still keeps his roughness. I don't know why he always brings the south to life in so many movies. The scenes where he's holed up in his home-made "office" are so gritty they seem to be filmed behind a lens that's been covered in a thick layer of dirt. There are old, rickety oscillating fans and low, dusty lawn chairs.

Then there's the swamp - plenty of swamp - and you can certainly imagine what it's like to have your two choices be getting your throat slit or swimming with crocodiles.

John Cusack plays the murderer. He's absolutely unsettling in this movie and barely recognizable. His face is transformed from the sweet charming boy we all know into someone whose bloodlust eminates from his eyes and open mouth as he stares bluntly, dumbly, his cheeks ragged and his hair hanging down in stiff, greasy pieces.

All of this works well, and makes the movie fun to watch, but it has a shallowness problem. There's a false note in the way Nicole Kidman stumbles on the set and takes over the plot. Sure, she's got some brave moves here, as Ebert pointed out - but we're watching her brave acting rather than believing her character. She takes so much screen time for the majority of the movie; she motivates the plot (no murderer-freeing without her there) and she motivates the actions of the two hero brothers (no victim-rescuing without her there). However, aside from the fact that Nicole can still truss up as a sexy whore, what do we learn from her appearance? There's a lot of potential. She's a dumb-ish lower-class woman seeking a man; she also has a propensity to be attracted to prison inmates. In the very beginning of the story, her romance with Cusack's character, consisting only of letters they wrote each other, reminded me of the beautiful book The Executioner's Song which is motivated also by just such a romance. This could be a real story; she could be a real character. What is it about her that makes her want a convicted murderer for a mate? Why does she want him out of prison so badly?

We'll never know because all she does in the film is spout sex and then be victimized; it's truly a wasted performance by Kidman -- bravery and all.