| Artwork |
 |
| Film vitals |
|
· Year: 2002
· Director: Tom Shadyac
· Writers: David Seltzer, Brandon Camp, Mike Thompson
· Cast: Kevin Costner, Susanna Thompson
|
| If you liked this, try |
|
|
| Products |
|
Amazon.com
|
| Links |
|
|
|
| Synopsis |
|
A doctor who recently lost his wife in an accident believes she may be contacting him through his patients' near-death experiences.
|
|
|
|
RATING
Out of 100 |
|
65
|
|
| COLD ANALYSIS |
|
ATMOSPHERE
|
|
GORE
|
|
HUMOR
|
|
SCARES
|
|
TENSION
|
We all have our little dreams in life. Not the big ones, like what we want to be when we grow up, just the little ones, things we know won't happen but will make life just a tiny little bit better. One of my small dreams is that the people who actually create a movie should be responsible for marketing it. Perhaps just the director, the cinematographer, the writer. If that was the way things were, then Dragonfly wouldn't have been mismarketed as a ghostly horror film and might have been advertised as the moderately atmospheric drama it really was. Had it been promoted in the right way, it might not have been seen in the same light as such horrific ghost films as The Sixth Sense and What Lies Beneath and as a result maybe it wouldn't have gotten the critical pasting it's taken.
It's partially Dragonfly's fault, though. The script, by David Seltzer, Brandon Camp, and Mike Thompson, is too aware of the expectations of the haunted house crowd, and the few scares they throw into the movie are executed clumsily. Part of the problem is the film's premise: a man's deceased wife is trying to reach him from beyond the grave solely to help him. That's a fine idea, but dramatically speaking, it takes the air out of the film's tension. In movies like The Changeling and Stir of Echoes, the entity in question wanted something desperately and had no relation to the protagonist. The danger arose from the idea that the ghost was willing to hurt or terrorize anyone--even the person they're asking for help--because they really didn't care about them. Had Dragonfly taken a somewhat different path, like introducing some doubt as to the identity of the ghost, or just reducing the obviousness of some of the supernatural manifestations, it would have worked better.
But when Dragonfly works, it's satisying. Though its plot involves dying children and a man's sorrow over losing his wife, it avoids the sappiness that marked director Tom Shadyac's previous effort, Patch Adams. Characters both major and minor are established deftly and with a humor that's a welcome surprise. Those characters are well-played, too, especially by Kathy Bates, who is at her wryly humorous best as the next-door neighbor of Kevin Costner's character. And Costner's performance, while not being a revelation, is still an impressive example of his understated style. In one scene in particular, his character goes a little nuts in his obsession to discover what his wife is trying to tell him. It's a bit that's been in a million movies, but Costner throws himself into it, and his emotional approach at that point strikes a sharp contrast to the way he's played the character, and it's all the more effective as a result.
Seen as a whole, Dragonfly works. Its pacing is not slow so much as deliberate, taking the time to develop a layered mystery, moving confidently from point to point. Parts of it are obvious, parts aren't, but the mystery combines disparate elements into an almost seamless whole. I liked Dragonfly more on an emotional level than I liked it on an intellectual one; I enjoyed the trip it took me on.
|
|
