The Interpreter

Starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn and Catherine Keener

Written by Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian

Directed by Sydney Pollack

But why? The film has an impeccable pedigree. Director Sidney Pollack is cut from the same cloth as fellow mavericks of 1970's cinema such as Coppola, Scorsese and Lumet, and he knows his way around a thriller. He also managed to finagle a location shoot inside the actual U.N. building, which gives the picture a level of verisimilitude that no set or Industrial Light and Magic computer jockey could ever hope to deliver. The trio of screenwriters credited for the script wrote such heady fare as Minority Report, Out of Sight, Schindler's List and Gangs of New York. Penn and Kidman are two of our most gifted actors. With this lineup, I'm hardwired to love this picture. So why didn't I?

After much soul searching, I finally arrived at a resolution. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

The Interpreter opens with a brutal, sobering reminder that murder is still the coin of the realm in most of the Third World— particularly in Africa, where genocide has become so commonplace that it doesn't even bump the Michael Jackson trial from the top slot on the evening news. These events lead us back to the United Nations, where the U.N. is preparing for an address to the General Assembly by a politician named Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), president of the fictional African nation of Matobo. Zuwanie was once seen as an idealist and a reformer, but has recently been accused of genocide, and is now marked for death himself by his opponents. The plot rolls into motion when U.N. interpreter Sylvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) overhears a conspiratorial whisper late at night in the General Assembly hall— "The Teacher will never leave this room alive"— spoken in Koo, the native tongue of Matobo. Has Sylvia stumbled on a plot to assassinate Zuwanie? And is it a coincidence that Sylvia herself is a native of Matobo, whose parents were killed in the political violence, and who once herself supported Zuwanie's bid to power?

These are the questions asked by Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn), who is assigned to investigate the threat, and who immediately suspects Sylvia's motives. Keller lost his wife to an automobile accident mere weeks earlier, and develops an immediate emotional connection to the fragile Sylvia. He learns to empathize with her even as he becomes convinced that her motives are more complex than her announced fealty to the U.N.'s mission of solving conflict through debate rather than violence. The film's suspense comes from Keller's race to unravel the conspiracy, and Sylvia's secrets, before they climax in an explosion of violence on the floor of the U.N. itself.

So what's not to love? Pollack spent most of the Nineties mired in a prolonged creative funk, helming dismal, middlebrow fare such as Havana and Random Hearts that no one loved and few even admired. But at 71 years old he still has the fire, and his dedication to craft is what raises The Interpreter above the level of junk food— like, say, National Treasure. His major set piece, in which Keller races to stop a bomb from taking out a bus ridden by a rival Matobo politician currently living in exile in Queens, is a marvel of precision filmmaking. If the climax of the film doesn't live up to that second-act payoff, it's the result of the screenplay opting for a quiet, morally complex resolution rather than a typical Hollywood action-and-CGI orgasm.

The picture does have its share of problems. Penn and Kidman both give it their all, but it’s hard to buy either of them in their roles. Penn is morphing into Robert DeNiro before our eyes, and he comes across as more of a shopworn Brooklyn detective than a career Secret Service agent. Kidman, meanwhile, is too icy of an actress to ever elicit real sympathy from the audience. She delivers better as an object or a symbol than as a real person—and if she’s a native white African, then she must have spent her entire life indoors, because there’s nary a freckle to be found on her porcelain complexion.

And in the age of John Bolton, the Iraq oil-for-food scandal and the neoconservative assault on the U.N., how is it that this film manages so completely to avoid the question of the U.N.’s relevance? You can argue that the film reveals its liberal petticoat in Sylvia’s near religious belief in the power of the institution to resolve conflict. But the film is so inert on the subject of the U.N.’s legitimacy that the setting serves no purpose other than window dressing. You can also argue that the character of Sylvia is a metaphor for the U.N. itself— distant, morally relativist, witness to the violence and corruption around the globe but too impotent and removed to respond. But really, that’s just egghead talk. The film resolutely refuses to take a stand.

These objections aside, my lukewarm reaction to The Interpreter has its roots in the 20 years of cheap one-night stands to which Hollywood has subjected me. Two decades of big-budget, special-effects driven action potboilers peppered with pithy one-liners and thundering soundtracks have inured me to the subtle charms of a filmmaker who wants to take me out for dinner and give me flowers before laying me down in front of the fireplace on a bearskin rug. I'm so used to dating the equivalent of Harley-riding, cheap-cologne wearing bad boys like Michael Bay, Renny Harlin and McG, who only want to get in my pants for a few minutes of sweaty rutting before they ride off in a cloud of hundred dollar bills, that I no longer know a good thing when I see it.

But Pollack, the old smoothie, knows the difference between making love and fucking. When he tells me that he'll still respect me in the morning, I want to believe him— but there's Robert Rodriguez, beckoning me with CGI-laden eye candy like Sin City, and once again I go for the cheap thrill.

I’d advise you not to do the same. Sometimes, gut reactions are wrong. The Interpreter is a good film, and you should see it. Forget those flashy pictures with their bedroom eyes and their overdeveloped muscles. Give the nerdy film with the glasses and the sunken chest a chance. He may not make your heart race. But you may just learn to love him.

May 4, 2005
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