David Seltzer`s ”Shining Through” aims for the delirious, doom-laden romanticism of a Hollywood espionage thriller from the war years but plummets to Earth in slightly less exalted territory. It isn`t so much ”Casablanca”
as a tattered, formula-bound Harlequin Romance, never able to pack much life or personality into its trite dialogue and unimaginatively assembled cliches. The picture is also, in part, ”Working Girl Whips the Nazis,” leaning heavily on Melanie Griffith`s characterization of a plucky working-class secretary in Mike Nichols` 1988 hit to create her role here: that of a plucky working-class secretary who, romantically rejected by her dashing but unfeeling boss (stubbornly uncharismatic Michael Douglas), volunteers to work as an OSS spy in Nazi Germany.
After a few false starts-Seltzer is also the author of the sputtering screenplay, adapted from Susan Isaacs` novel-she finds work as a nanny in the home of a handsome but menacing Nazi officer (Liam Neeson) who has the top-secret plans for the V-2 rocket locked up in a vault in his basement.
(Luckily for Griffith, he keeps the key to the vault on top of the door frame.)
Seltzer, a veteran screenwriter (”The Omen”) who has directed two previous features (”Lucas” and ”Punchline”), doesn`t have much feel for the medium and seems particularly confounded by questions of pace.
Though it`s perfectly clear where the film is headed from its first sequence (an elderly Griffith reluctantly confiding her wartime experiences to a BBC interviewer, thus initiating a flashback structure that uncomfortably parallels Fox`s recent failure ”For the Boys”), Seltzer is intent on hammering out every tedious twist of the plot, where a few judicious ellipses might have given this movie some drive. As a result, the film seems much longer than its already excessive 2 hours and 12 minutes.
One of the chief functions of a director is to smoothly integrate the creative contributions of a wide range of collaborators, but Seltzer is never able to unite separate elements of his film into a coherent whole.
Some of those elements are quite good (Jan De Bont`s dark and brooding cinematography, Anthony Pratt`s convincing period production design), and some are hopelessly overstated (such as Michael Kamen`s schmaltzy symphonic score), but none of them seems to be working in intelligent concert with any other.
Lanky Joely Richardson is fun to watch as a German blueblood who befriends Griffith in Berlin, and John Gielgud makes a hurried guest appearance as a highly placed American spy, though he looks so distracted that one wonders if he even knows the name of the movie he`s appearing in.
The plot has one looming and possibly insurmountable problem-the fact that the love interest represented by the Douglas character must disappear for the last half of the film, when Griffith proves her mettle (as well as a number of anachronistic feminist principles) by striking out on her own behind the enemy lines.
Seltzer fails to pursue the obvious solution-that of creating some romantic tension between Griffith and the Nazi officer-fearing, perhaps, that his audience wouldn`t be able to handle the slightest hint of moral complexity. This one remains a tedious matter of good guys and bad guys down to its most welcome end.
”SHINING THROUGH”
(STAR)
Directed and written by David Seltzer; photographed by Jan De Bont; production designed by Anthony Pratt; edited by Craig McKay; music by Michael Kamen;
produced by Howard Rosenmann and Carol Baum. A Twentieth Century Fox release; opens Jan. 31 at the Water Tower, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 2:12. MPAA rating: R. Adult situations, violence.
THE CAST
Ed Leland……………………………………..Michael Douglas
Linda Voss……………………………………Melanie Griffith
Franze-Otto Dietrich……………………………….Liam Neeson
Margrete Von Eberstien…………………………Joely Richardson
Sunflower………………………………………..John Gielgud
