Review:
"Fool's Paradise"
Release Date: May 12, 2023
Rating: R Running Time: 98 minutes Drop The Little Tramp, Silent Movie, and Being There into a blender and the passable mix you get is actor Charlie Day’s directorial debut, Fool’s Paradise. Day’s occasionally funny but not necessarily pointed Hollywood satire—now on VOD after last month’s brief theatrical run—tells the rags-to-riches-rags story of a mentally ill man who becomes an unlikely movie star thanks to a combination of strange luck and good-old-fashioned exploitation. Day stars as Latte Pronto, a man with an undiagnosed mental health disorder that takes the form of elective mutism and behavioral mimicry. Dumped on the streets because he can’t afford treatment, Latte inadvertently crosses paths with and is recruited by Ray Liotta’s high-powered producer as a stand-in for a movie star on the verge of a nervous breakdown. One thing leads to another and Latte replaces his famous lookalike as the star of a Billy the Kid western, enjoys instant celebrity, marries Kate Beckinsale’s starlet, and is steered toward a career in politics. Latte’s very much a blank slate. Day never reveals Latte’s true name, his mental illness, or his personal circumstances prior to arriving in Hollywood. Instead, Day allows Latte to become anything and everything to the greedy, the needy, the desperate, and the unscrupulous in a bid to gently poke fun at Hollywood’s many flaws and sins. Day does not say anything new about Hollywood traditions and practices, the current state of the film industry, or its vapid movers and shakers. Instead, Fool’s Paradise seems more of an opportunity to share his observations of an industry that creates superstar while eating its own, makes films for mass consumption, and lives by and happily breaks its own rules and morals. And Day seems to enjoy biting the hand that feeds, tough he bites so lightly that it barely leaves a mark. Oddly, though, Fool’s Paradise possesses such an old soul that its modern-day setting works against it. Day’s Latte is essentially Charlie Chaplin’s the Little Tramp in a brown pork pie hat, gray shirt and pants, and dark jacket. The studio-shot western that turns Latte into a household name belongs to an era when Gary Cooper and John Wayne dominated the box office. Kate Beckinsale’s diva, delightfully exuding a lack of self-aware, is cut from the same cloth as Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner. Building upon the comedic timing he displayed in last year’s See How They Run, Adrian Brody carries himself as a classic leading man with ease and poise. It would not come as a surprise if Day initially set Fool’s Paradise in the 1940s and 1950s but did a quick partial write to include superhero movies, visual effects, and energy drinks once he realized he needed to contemporize his story because a period comedy would be cost prohibitive. Unfortunately, Fool’s Paradise really needed to be seeped in the glitz and glamor of old Hollywood to make Latte’s journey seems all the more improbable and grimy. It can be done. For example, Mel Brooks brought a 1920s sensibility to the 1970s-set Silent Movie, an obvious influence on Fool’s Paradise given no one except for Marcel Marceau utters a word. That said, by modelling Latte on Being There’s Chauncey Gardiner—an ordinary man possibly living with undiagnosed autism who inexplicably obtains undue influence on the rich and powerful through his simple aphorisms —Day deftly explores how a cult of personality can quickly develop and take hold regardless of whether the person in question is a wise and considerate leader or a useful idiot. And, of course, Latte is positioned as a man for the people, which means absolutely nothing in the scheme of things. Latte greets his possible entry into politics in the same way he treats his swift rise to fame and fortune—with slight confusion and a complete lack of resistance. Latte is so willingly caught up in a journey to the heart of Hollywood darkness not of his making that he never tries to deviate from the path he is forced down. Latte only seems with his relationship with his motor-mouthed and ineffective publicist played by Ken Jeong, who initially views Latte as his meal ticket but comes to appreciate his friendship with each Hollywood misadventure. Day’s gives a highly reactive performance, one obviously solely reliant on nonverbal communication. Channeling Charlie Chaplin, Day constantly entertains with his reflective and tightly controlled exaggerated facial gestures and body language. He says more with a single look of bewilderment than he could with a page of dialogue. Fool’s Paradise is obviously fueled by Day’s dexterous attempts at physical comedy. That and the endless parade of cameos by Day’s past and present costars. “If you can pretend to be a person in the movies, you can pretend to be a person in life,” Latte is told late in Fool’s Paradise. But, by design, Latte is not much of a fully realized person in his own life or in the movies he stumbles into starring in. He is nothing more than a passive observer than an active participant in his story. Which makes him the perfect vehicle through which to view the vagaries of Hollywood. Robert Sims Aired: May 30, 2023. Web sites: https://www.foolsparadisemovie.com/ https://roadsideattractions.com/filmography/foolsparadise/ |
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