#i've been oddly obsessed with her lately tbh

[harrietvane]

Hey, Sus: excuse me, but how come I've NEVER HEARD OF ROUGH MAGIC BEFORE???? Like, WHAAT??? your description on that gifset has got my jaw on the floor, OBVIOUSLY i must find this film immediately!!!

Angie, my lamb, my heart, my little pastry, I am DELIGHTED to throw Rough Magic, (1995, dir. Clare Peploe) at you.

What is this 'noir pastiche road-movie with magical realism and magical magic', you ask? Besides GENIUS?? Well, firstly, it is not a Good Movie. I mean that's a given. Sitting on 25% review score on Rottem Tomatoes so like let's be reasonable about this. But also I am frequently obsessed with movies that can't climb over that quarter line, so this is not new territory for me, lol.

OK, so: it's a mid-90's little caper film based on a James Hadley Chase pulp novel from 1944. This guy is sort of the British Louis L'amour but he wrote about American gangsters. Shrug emoji I guess. After WW2, settled down in France, and using a slang phrasebook and a map, churned out over 90 smash hit, all plot, no lore, american gangster pulp pagerturner novels. One of which was 'Ms Shumway Waves a Wand', which I have not read. But someone did, and this movie happened. It's an incredibly odd mix of genres, some of which just don't gel and it's awkward, and some of which are so great they rewire my brain.

The late great Roger Ebert said Clare Peploe "deserves credit for the uncompromising way in which she stage manages a head-on collision between [the 2 genres] in Rough Magic, an oddly enchanting fantasy that almost works" - that sort of sums it up, a head-on collision but it ALMOST works. But also it has so much bizarre, fun, aimed-directly-at-me stuff.

Everyone in this movie is basically some kind of con artist. No one is playing straight with anyone, ever. Always a treat. The protagonist witnesses a crime in Act 1, goes on the run by heading for the Mexico/Guatemalan border to a) skip town, and b) keep a promise about finding a holy woman there who can help her with her own magic. Everyone else follows. Hijinks ensue.

Bridget Fonda: Myra, a cynical magician's assistant in LA, big Lauren Bacall vibes. Fast-talking. Excellently dressed. Unruffled. On the run. Cranky. Probably/definitely an actual witch. Big heart but she'd never admit it, and removes it (literally) to prove the fact. Lays a giant robin's egg at one point.

Russel Crowe: a down-on his-luck PI. If you saw La Confidential and though 'hmm Russel Crowe looks nice in 40's gear, he should always wear that', then congratulations, he's wearing that, but he's a PRE-FAME BABY. Has PTSD but would never admit it. Dies and is resurrected at one point.

Jim Broadbent: possibly an anthropologist, possibly a snake-oil salesman, mostly he's just drunk. Believes in magic, wants to prove it. Idealist but would never admit it.

Also featuring: Myra's nuclear-obsessed fiance, his secretary Toby Ziegler, unsubtitled spanish dialogue, a man turned into a sausage, everyone refusing to admit Feelings, hallucinogenic drugs in gourds, floating make-outs, top hats. 'Comedy, love, and a bit with a dog'. The dialogue is EXTREMELY mannered, in that 'everyone talks like roger rabbit pretending to be a gangster' sort of way, which Bridget Fonda admits she struggled with making it sound natural, but I think it works. That Big Sleep kind of quick back-and-forth can seem a bit off when the picture is in colour and you're otherwise aware it's 1995, but honestly it's no LESS mannered than the Whedon-speak that's overtaken contemporary american films, which is an equally specific/mannered dialogue form tbh. The costumes are beautiful. The cars are beautiful. The photography is beautiful. There's a double in the casting re: the holy woman and a cantina owner they meet along the way that is never explained. It's just that kind of party.

If you have not been able to obtain it: it used to float around in t*rrenting, but those golden days are probably over. I recently got a hard copy DVD from an online retailer. I think Amzn will sell you a digital one.

Or I have an .avi file if you ask nice :-P