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Jason Maloney reviews 
Warner Home Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: D 018324
- Running time: 87 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Romanian
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: Audio commentary, Interviews, Trailer, Deleted Scenes, Alternate Ending, “Grab bag” (music videos and montage)
Director:
- Davis Guggenheim
Cast:
- James Marsden, Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, Kate Hudson Joshua Jackson and Eric Bogosian
“It’s good to talk…”, the infamous Bob Hoskins-voiced BT advert once claimed. Well, good for the company’s profits, no doubt, but anyone who’s ever been entangled in a web of insidious, deceitful tittle-tattle might beg to differ on that point.
Rumours spread like wildfire, and can often be just as dangerous. Lethal, even. And it’s rumours, needless and apparently thoughtless ones, which are the topic on everyone’s lips in this smart suspense thriller from David Guggenheim.
Gossip casts an unforgiving, if stylised, eye on the nature of society and its obsession with the private details of people’s lives. The lines between fact and fiction have been blurred to such an extent that often the truth itself is of little importance, as the impact and credibility of scandal, gossip and rumour takes its cue from the well-worn adage that there is no smoke without fire.
Where better, then, to set the film than on a college campus – a place full of pretty young things liable to set tongues wagging with their drink-fuelled hormonal urges and social indiscretions.
A trio of arty, mischievious students (James Marsden, Lena Headey & Norman Reedus) see the immedate effects that putting about a small white lie can have, and the seed is planted which will have far-reaching repercussions. Needing to fulfill their Journalism course requirements, they hatch an idea for their course project. A rich-girl student (Kate Hudson, pre- Almost Famous) and her sexually-frustrated boyfriend (Dawson Creek‘s Joshua Jackson) find themselves caught up in the game but, unfortunately, things quickly turn sour for all concerned.
Though it’s visual palate is awash with atmospherically-lit interiors decked out in flourescent lighting and draped with Warhol-esque cut’n’paste murals, evoking a modern-day version of Blow-Up‘s Sixties bohemia, and contemporary techno beats flood the soundtrack without overpowering it, the actual structure of Gossip is more in keeping with a traditional whodunnit mystery.
Indeed, when the movie largely abandons its scathing, enjoyably hip bravado for an oddly unsatisfying conclusion, it very nearly brings the whole carefully constructed scenario tumbling down like a deck of cards. An alternate (or rather extended) ending, included on the DVD edition, adds more dialogue and an extra parting shot, but does little to rectify the improbability of the film’s climax.
Twists and double/triple-crosses are part and parcel of the thriler genre, yet it’s still a shame to see 80 minutes of engrossing entertainment resolved in such a cliched manner. Marsden, who rose to prominence as a begoggled action-hero in last summer’s blockbuster X-Men, makes for a suitably dubious protagonist. Beguiling and manipulative, he’s ably assisted by Reedus as a socially-handicapped dropout immersed in his art, quietly going about his business yet still playing a key part in proceedings. A remarkably Winona Ryder-esque performance from Headey as their conscience-troubled library dweller completes the central threesome.
As they speculate to accumulate, deliberately placing a scurrilous rumour into the mill of campus discussion, the resulting devastation throws up a few surprises for all concerned. Gossip plays upon the inevitable loss of accuracy inherent in such chinese whispers, sitting back and letting the damaging sparks fly until certain assumptions are turned on their head.
Despite ultimately overdoing matters with one too many curveballs, there is still some fun to be had in the film’s intelligent depiction of an escalating situation created by unscrupulous exaggeration and misinformation.
Trust no-one, as the X-Files‘ Deep Throat once advised, would seem to be the only sensible option.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.