Frear’s first film, Gumshoe,may be his best. Totally underrated. Amazing Albert Finney performance. One of the best neo noirs ever made.
A thoughtful appraisal, Ari. I was a big fan of Frears in the 1980s—he even did justice to one of my true heroes, Joe Orton, in “Prick Up Your Ears”—and then, like many, I let him slip under my radar. You’re right: he’s neither spectacular nor splashy, but he’s as perceptive an auteur as any.
I’ve always wanted to see Gumshoe. Earliest Frears film I’ve seen is The Hit.
Frears films featuring adultery, unintentional pregnancies, betrayal or the art of seduction: Tamara Drewe, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, Cheri, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, The Hi-Lo Country, The Snapper, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Dirty Pretty Things, Liam, High Fidelity, Mary Reilly, Prick Up Your Ears, My Beautiful Laundrette, and The Hit.
Ari
I caught Tamara Drewe last weekend and the film turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. It seems Frears has made some of the very few decent romantic comedies this past decade. That said, Frears is a director that largely goes under the radar. Not a single thread on him here. In my mind, he’s made a few excellent films (his mid to late 80s period in particular with My Beautiful Laundrette, Prick Up Your Ears, and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid), many good films and only a few outright duds (and I’m almost tempted to revisit Mary Reilly and Hero just to see if they really were as bad as I remember or if perhaps I was unduly influenced by critical consensus at the time). In other words, for a director with a large filmography and who moves between the UK and Hollywood, he has a good, if not exceptional track record. He probably flies under the radar because he doesn’t appear to have a distinct visual style and moves between genres (neo-noirs, gangster films, romantic comedies, westerns, character studies , whimsical comedies, biopoics).
However, there are some commonalities in his films. First, a focus on character-driven performances. He’s an actor’s director and it’s not surprising to me that he has caught many actors’ career best performances (especially actresses). And, more importantly, it’s how he uses these performances to capture flawed humans and real human relationships. He really does a good job at humanizing flawed individuals. Probably the best example of this is The Queen. But he’s probably at his best with ordinary people (why John Cusack has made two of his better films since he encapsulates this persona of flawed everyman). There aren’t really villains in any of his films. Nor heroes. Think of the Grifters where there’s a character who tries to seduce her son in order to steal his money, and when that doesn’t work, accidentally kill him, yet she still seems very fragile and recognizably human.
I guess this is why he’s one of the best non-French directors to handle adultery (featured in many of his films) and captures the the fraught realities of human relationships very well (probably as good as any English language filmmaker when he’s at the top of his game).