The Charge

Hey, baby…let's do it bonobo style!

Opening Statement

In 1982, Barry Levinson's Diner, a melancholy semiautobiographical look at the post-college doldrums, launched a whole new subgenre of entertainment: the "newly-minted adults contemplating the future" film. This genre became permanently embedded in the American consciousness the next year, when Lawrence Kasdan's Baby Boomer classic The Big Chill became its defining moment. Since then, we've been getting a healthy number of these films pretty much every year. The premise is simple and nearly foolproof: Take some attractive twentysomethings or thirtysomethings, put them all together for a weekend on some farm, or a camp somewhere, and watch their angst and problems all come out in the wash. (The classic rock soundtrack is optional.) The basic format can serve as a jumping-off point for everything from comedy (as in Diner) to drama (The Big Chill) to soft-core porn (cable's Married People, Single Sex series).

Origin of the Species, based on an off-Broadway play by Robert Weston Ackerman, goes the drama route, with just a dash of sex appeal thrown in. Like so many of its predecessors, it doesn't completely overcome the problems associated with the transfer of stage drama to film. But it succeeds fantastically in capturing the languid atmosphere of a summer weekend getaway with friends, and its before-they-were-names cast brings so much realism to the goings-on that you almost feel guilty for watching, as if you're eavesdropping on something you shouldn't be seeing.

Facts of the Case

Origin of the Species is not about Charles Darwin. No, it's about a group of six old friends who gather each year for a weekend of talking, drinking, and occasional skinny-dipping.

Paul (Elon Gold, In-Laws) and Julia (Amanda Peet, The Whole Nine Yards) are the requisite happy couple who, deep down, aren't so happy. Actually, Paul's darned happy. He's got a hot wife, he can cook, and he happily whiles away the hours entertaining the others with his take on Darwin, evolution, and the ever-fascinating bonobo's place in the universe. (Bonobos are a kind of ape who spend the majority of their lives…um…sexing each other up. A lot.) Plus, he gets to spend these weekends with five of his good friends, one of whom is the aforementioned hot wife. What's not to love?

Julia, however, is hiding a secret: She's pregnant. She realizes that children will dramatically change their lives, and like most first-time mothers, she's not so sure she's prepared to take that step. Deep down, she's not sure Paul would understand her doubts, either—which is why she's been keeping quiet.

Meanwhile, their buddy Stan (Jonathan LaPaglia, The District) has his own issues. He's recovering from a bout of testicular cancer, an illness that does not conform to his studly, high-powered-attorney lifestyle. He's sullen, vaguely angry, and slightly antisocial. Nobody really knows how to treat him, or bring up his health issues, so they spend a lot of time tiptoeing around him.

One person who really wants to connect with Stan is sweet, innocent Laura (Jean Louisa Kelly, Yes, Dear), an "executive assistant" (i.e. secretary) whose psychic told her that she was going to have a significant romantic encounter over this weekend. She's worried, though, that her friend Kate (Sybil Temchen, Restaurant)—who just happens to be Stan's ex-girlfriend—might be a complicating factor.

Finally, there's Fisher (Michael Kelly, Dawn of the Dead), who just wants to get laid. Preferably by Kate. Or Julia.

The Evidence

Let's be honest: Few of these Big Chill-inspired dramas work. The few that do work usually do so because they keep things simple. It's hard for an audience to relate to someone who's worrying about where he can get new titanium rims for his Mercedes S600. (Well, hard for most audiences, at least.) On the other hand, most viewers can relate to dealing with the untimely death of a friend or relative—which was the core issue in The Big Chill. The more we, as viewers, can relate to the onscreen characters, the more invested we become in seeing their stories through. On the other hand, if we find their problems obscure or, even worse, petty, we not only lose interest, but we often turn on them. At that point, the film goes from "entertainment" to "God, I can't believe I actually spent money to watch those a-holes bitch and moan for two hours."

Thankfully, Origin of the Species is one of the Chill-inspired films that gets it right. In fact, it bears more than a passing resemblance to one of Levinson's primary inspirations for Chill; John Sayles's Return of the Secaucus 7. Both Secaucus 7 and this film deal with something everyone must face at some point in their lives: the fact that eventually we all have to grow up and act like adults. Real life isn't all it's cracked up to be sometimes; you have to make sacrifices and think about needs beyond your own. After all, you can't let your baby wallow in his own poop for two hours just because you've got a good game of Madden 2K5 going on the PlayStation.

Ackerman's characters, all in their late twenties, are well-drawn and believable. Oh sure, they're all self-absorbed to a certain extent—but they're believably self-absorbed, just like you'd find with real twentysomethings. Each character has his or her own issues to deal with, some of which overlap. What makes the story effective is how close-to-the-vest the issues are played by the characters, and by the actors who play them. For example, Stan (LaPaglia) has a lot of issues stemming from his testicular surgery. By the end of the film, it's clear that he feels somewhat emasculated, and therefore fears intimacy. But thankfully—and I can't emphasize the "thankfully" enough, having seen so many God-awfully poor counterexamples—Ackerman doesn't hit us over the head with these characteristics through dialogue or situations. A bad film would have Stan get drunk somewhere in Act I, maneuver him into a Serious Conversation at some point, and therein have him blurt out something like, "Charlie, they took my balls! They took my balls, Charlie!" To once again quote the great Dave Edmunds—subtle as a flying mallet. This film doesn't fall into that trap. Instead, we meet Stan without any knowledge—other than some whispering by other characters—as to his issues. At first, he appears to be just a garden-variety sullen jerk. But if you pay close attention, you'll notice that only certain things set him off. Sometimes he's charming; sometimes somebody presses the wrong button and he turns caustic and antisocial. Of course, there is a big expository scene for Stan, but it's late in the film, and—more importantly—it doesn't wrap Stan's issues up in a nice, neat package. We still have to put the pieces together ourselves. By the end, when all is said and done, we've got a good handle on Stan's issues and his prognosis for future happiness, and we can see in hindsight why he was so testes…er, testy.

That level of subtlety, combined with the skill of this cast, makes Origin of the Species feel almost claustrophobically personal. But that's a good thing here—it makes the film seem less like a motion picture, and more like some sort of home movie. At times, scenes were so personal that I half expected the characters to look straight at the camera and ask us to go away and mind our own business. There's an almost voyeuristic feel to the proceedings—something I haven't seen very often in films like this. It works well in this particular context.

The cast, as mentioned, is quite skilled, and takes to the material very well. Elon Gold is perfectly cast as Paul, the organizer of the weekend. He's charming and gregarious, but you can clearly see the source of his problems—he, of the gang, is by far the most self-absorbed, although he's very subtle about it. It's what causes him to be virtually oblivious to the fact that his own wife is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. It's tough to balance those two poles in a character, but Gold does it well. He's a guy that I thought would be a much, much bigger name by now than he is, although you can't say he hasn't been successful. (Full disclosure: I've met Elon; I actually played poker with him a couple of months before this film was made, when I was living in New York. Heck of a funny guy, let me tell you…)

By now, we're all well aware of what Amanda Peet can do on screen, so finding her putting in a solid, interesting performance here shouldn't surprise anyone. Michael Kelly is an Actor's Studio grad, so ditto for him. (Insert your own James Lipton joke here, if necessary…) The real eye-opener is Sybil Temchen, who just smolders with a barely-repressed sexuality in every scene she's in. Kate may not be the prettiest girl in the room, but she's for damn sure the one every guy wants to jump into bed with. She's got "it"—and "it" isn't always about the looks.

Picture and sound on the release are solid; the feature is presented in a full screen aspect ratio, with sound coming by way of a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix. Neither are reference quality, but they're nothing to sneeze at, either. There are no real video problems with the transfer, other than the occasional scratch here and there. Grain and color are about what you'd expect from an indie film shot on 35mm stock. This is a bare-bones release, though—no extras of any sort are provided.

One more thing deserves a mention—I'm not sure whether it's the setting, or the cinematography, or the direction, or the costuming, but this film made me feel the languid, humid laziness of a summer's day in Westchester. The house and lake where the film was photographed look beautiful here; the greenery is dappled by golden sunlight reflected off the inviting water of the lake. Having spent many summers in the Northeast, I know exactly what these sorts of days feel like, and this film really took me back to those times. That's a pretty great achievement for a film, I think.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

It's difficult to adapt theatrical plays to the cinematic format—the two media are very different beasts. And try as it might, Origin of the Species can't hide its stage origins. By adapted play standards, it's actually very well done—but it still has the unavoidable flaws that come with the package when you adapt a stage play for the big screen.

Plays are truly "staged"—everything that's put into a play has to take place within the confines of a relatively small stage space. Plays are therefore very static. People come on stage, they stay close together, and they talk. Then, the scene changes, and maybe you get some new scenery or something. But the same process occurs: people come on stage, they stay close together, and they talk.

Cinema, on the other hand, is a very dynamic medium. The camera, unlike a play's audience, can move. In fact, you can take the camera someplace completely different! Since you, as the writer or director, are in complete control of the final visual product, you can feel free to add things like space battles or action montages at will; things that would be almost impossible to create live on stage. Not only is more possible in cinema, more is expected by the viewers from cinema. Unless the film is just a straight cinematic recording of a play being performed (e.g., virtually all early television drama), viewers generally will react negatively to a direct port of theater-written drama to the movies. The resulting work will be considered too static ("nothing much happened"), excessively "talky," and very often "boring."

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a play to convert it into a more cinematic form before you wind up writing a completely new piece. Hence, even the best screen adaptations of plays are still clearly identifiable as "plays" and not "scripts." What are the signs? Well, some are pretty obvious—the presence of lots of dialogue, and not a lot of sword fighting or smoky gazes, for example. Others are more subtle. Adapted plays tend to have more direct exposition—since you can't have a close-up shot in a play, which would let an actor express emotions through facial gestures, your play characters have to tell the audience what they're feeling or thinking. (That's a big reason why plays are so "talky.") Adapted plays tend to have a small number of sets, too.

Here's an illustration. Compare Origin with another recent cinematically adapted play, Mike Nichols's Closer (based on a play by Patrick Marber). What do these two films—one a low-budget indie about college friends, the other a big-budget award-winner about sexual apathy and aggression—have in common? Quite a bit, actually:

• A relatively small cast (six for Origin, four—not counting the ancillary characters—for Closer).
• A limited number of filming locations (two, functionally, for Origin, about four for Closer).
• Most, if not all, scenes involve one-on-one conversations between characters.
• A lot of talking.
• Hot babes.

Okay, technically the last one isn't really a characteristic of plays-turned-movies; just a characteristic of these two particular examples. But the other four are hallmarks of an adapted play—and things that are not usually characteristics of works with scripts written for cinema from the get-go.

Of course, these characteristics don't make a film bad. But given the flexibility of cinema, they do leave you wondering if more could have been done with the story if the play had just been ditched. For example, here in Origin the story is interesting, but does feel a tiny bit forced. Why aren't some details of the character's stories told by showing us their interactions in real life? Let's see Stan's neuroses making him shun the sexy coed barflies on the Upper West Side while he's out with his law buddies. Let's see some of Paul and Julia's home life. And so on. The absence of these doesn't ruin the film, or diminish its quality—it just leaves the viewer wondering why we didn't see more.

Having said that, director Andres Heinz does take great pains to break up the "stage" feel of the piece. There are several dream sequences in the film that clearly weren't a part of the play; they go a long way towards adding the third dimension that a straight adaptation would lack. Heinz also lets his characters get out of the house every now and then, keeping the key house-based scenes from seeming monotonous. And although the film is still very talky, the dialogue is a lot more realistic—and the actors therefore are given more room to act instead of just explain themselves—than you'd find in the typical stage play. So by adapted play standards, this (like Closer, for that matter) is extremely well done.

There are a couple of other minor nitpicks I have about the film. One is with the casting choice made with Laura. Jean Louisa Kelly, bless her heart, is absolutely, positively, unflinchingly adorable. And that's the problem. Stan wants to get back together with smokin' hot Kate—I can certainly see that. But she rejects him, and his only available option is…the fantastically cute Laura. Um…and the problem here is…? The choice here should be between sexy-but-shallow and plain-but-kind. But it's not. It's between sexy and sexy, which belittles Stan's conundrum. Instead of wondering whether Stan will choose substance over style—which I assume is what Ackerman was aiming for—I'm left thinking, "Geez, no matter how this turns out, that's some terrific sex there." Ironically, I think this probably could have been fixed by flip-flopping the actresses. You'd have to make Kelly less sweet, and Temchen more plain—but I think they could have pulled it off. Again, minor nitpick here. Kelly does a fine job in the role, and is—as I may have mentioned—unbelievably cute. Especially in a swimsuit.

While most of the dialogue is well-crafted, there are a couple of cringingly awkward lines, especially in the final act. I'm guessing these probably worked better in the setting of a silent theater before an intimate audience, but here on the big screen they just sound…unrealistic.

Finally, I just wasn't a huge fan of the music. It was a bit too laid-back and slow for me; a couple of shots of musical energy here and there could have done wonders for this film.

Closing Statement

The producer and director of Origin of the Species were both first-time filmmakers; this was also screenwriter Ackerman's first script, based on his first play. Given all that first-ness, it's astonishing how polished and coherent this film is. Although it isn't perfect, it's well-crafted, entertaining, well-acted, and has some genuinely great moments. It's personal and atmospheric in a way I've rarely seen. If you don't mind the inherent wordiness and static nature of an adapted stage play—or even if you do—there's certainly a lot to like here.

The Verdict

Not guilty—but only if the filmmakers have a Kate/Laura sandwich (on wheat) delivered to the Judge's chambers posthaste…

Similar Decisions

• Deterrence
• Breaking And Entering
• Ride With The Devil
• The Ballad Of The Sad Cafe

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