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I'm not a big fan of movie remakes. If producers actually remade flawed movies in order to correct their faults, then I'd be all for it. But Hollywood usually remakes great movies, and the result is rarely an
improvement.

Nonetheless, once a remake is released, I find it unfair to compare the new version to the original. Movies from the '30s-'60s were a different animal than they are today--celebrity star power is different, the pace of editing is different, and audience expectations are vastly different. So just because Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds (from this past summer) can't compare to Gary Cooper's original is beside the point. We're better off to critique the new version for what it is, which isn't much, admittedly.

This is the attitude I tried to bring to The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Charade which originally starred the incomparable Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. That I've seen Charade well over a dozen times (it's my mom's second favorite film) made the task a little harder, but it seemed grossly unfair to expect Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton to measure up to Grant and Hepburn, so why bother comparing.

I can say with honesty that I actually succeeded for a while. The Truth About Charlie starts off with a nice, jazzy score and postcard shots of Paris, and we actually meet the titular character (you never see him in the
original--oh, sorry, I said I wasn't going to do that) as he's traveling by train. True, our first experience with Wahlberg is underwhelming (he can't quite shake that Southie Boston accent), but Thandie Newton is terrific. She is one of the more graceful actresses in cinema today, and she brings a wonderfully sly wit to the role of Charlie's wife Regina Lambert.

The plot centers around Charlie or, should I say, Charlie's money. He liquidated the assets of his Paris flat while Regina was on holiday and tried to flee the country. She returns to Paris to find Charlie's been murdered, but there's no sign of the money. Instead, she's left with a barren apartment and a number of strange people following her. You see, Charlie had made a deal a long time ago with four associates and then reneged. One of the four died in the Balkan conflict, but the other three are after their money, and they think Regina has it. The problem is she doesn't know what they're talking about and has nowhere to turn. Enter Joshua Peters (Wahlberg), a friendly (maybe too friendly) young man who's here to help. But it turns out he has an interest in the money as well, and his name isn't Joshua. Adding to the mix are a French investigator and a U.S. customs agent, played with great panache by Tim Robbins.

If the story sounds confusing, that's intentional. Though Regina quickly falls in love with Joshua, his motivations are always suspect, and his relationship with the three who are after the money is slippery. Then
there's Mr. Bartholomew, the mysterious customs agent. What's his role in this? And most mysterious of all, where's the money? Charlie was carrying all of his possessions in a bag, and there's no trace of the millions there.

For such a great story, The Truth About Charlie is strangely inert. The problem is less with the casting (Wahlberg couldn't carry Grant's shoes, but then I can't imagine a contemporary actor who could) than with director Jonathan Demme's choices. Demme is clearly infatuated with the French New Wave, particularly the films of Truffaut and Godard, and tries to pack as many film references into this one as he can. So we have Godard's muse Anna Karina singing a song, we get the great crooner Charles Aznavour (seen famously in Shoot the Piano Player) singing a song, we see director Agnes Varda, and so on. All of these references tend to slow down the narrative right when it should be picking up.

Another problem is that Demme doesn't know the first thing about suspense, which is strange since he directed Silence of the Lambs. Here a comparison to Charade is helpful. In Charade, the confusion over Joshua Peters was genuinely suspenseful. Was Regina falling in love with someone who was going to harm her? This was amplified by the fact that people kept dying mysteriously. The cast of characters is small, so as each person dies it gets closer to Regina; and there aren't that many suspects left.

In The Truth About Charlie, that air of suspense is never utilized. The deaths are accidental instead of intentional, and no one's life ever appears in danger. Furthermore, Wahlberg doesn't have either the charm or gravity that Cary Grant had. Which means that Wahlberg never seems threatening to Regina. Thandie Newton could dance circles around Wahlberg, so the question isn't whether he's dangerous or not but what can she possibly see in him?

All of this is disappointing, because the elements of an entertaining movie are certainly here. Thandie Newton is wonderful as the woman in peril trying to understand what's going on. Tim Robbins has a snaky charm that animates every scene he's in (there aren't enough of them for my money). And Demme certainly knows how to use the Paris setting for maximum chic factor. A little more faithfulness to the original would've gone a long way.   

J. Robert Parks  11/6/2002