Fresh from his personal triumph at the Golden Globes
– winning Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for this performance – Paul Giamatti struts his comic stuff
across this long and winding story of one man’s colourful life.
Everyone formed an orderly queue to tell Giamatti that he was simply mah-vellous in
Sideways,
but in Barney’s Version he takes his extraordinary skills in delivery, timing, and empathy
to another level. It’s just a shame the Oscars don’t also reward such underrated abilities, as he’d no doubt be
a shoo-in there too.
The movie is based on the similarly long and winding novel by the late, great Canadian author Mordechai Richler,
whose previous work, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, was also made into a movie, starring the young
Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role. Richler himself wrote the screenplays for Life At The Top and Fun With
Dick And Jane, so he was no stranger to the transformative effect of film.
After Richler’s death, there was a tortuous journey from page to screen for this, arguably his finest work, but
after well over two hours in the company of his protagonist, Barney, I can say it was most definitely worth it.
Events come fast and furious at the beginning of the film, as Barney looks over his life in a series of flashbacks.
We see wedding number one, in Rome to Clara, a seventies hippy who trips and dips once too often, and dies. Then
it’s back to Montreal, where Barney is pushed and squeezed into getting hitched to the spoiled, rich, loud and
highly-sexed ‘Second Mrs P’ (joyously played by Minnie Driver). Unfortunately, at the wedding reception he has
a dual revelation: that he cannot stand the idea of spending the rest of his life with his new, bossy wife, and
that he’s literally just spotted the woman who he actually does want to spend it with, Miriam (Rosamund Pike at
her coolest). What timing! How can he ditch the former and woo the latter? Should he pursue Miriam on his
wedding night? Is he trapped? Can he go through with his honeymoon?
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