Spinning Man

Controversial statement alert:  I really liked Memento.  There, I said it.

Aside from the unique structure, outstanding acting and writing, and overall feel of the film, I dug how it dealt with memory, how it was malleable and subject to personal bias, how it was unreliable yet so damned important to Leonard’s life, things that can be said about all of us and our relationships with our own memories.  It makes ya think.

Now, were you to take Memento, put everything into a standard order and narrative, tone things down a bit, and redirect the memory discussion, you’d wind up with some approximation of Spinning Man.

Adapted from the book by George Harrar, the film’s plot centers around the disappearance of a teenage girl.  As luck would have it, the police find evidence that places her last moments within the gravitational pull of a college philosophy professor, making him a person of interest in the case.  According to him, there’s no connection to be made.  Thing is, he’s kinda evasive, rather absent-minded, and can’t really account for his whereabouts with any degree of certainty.  Complicating things, it turns out the reason he’s teaching where he is involves a prior affair with a student a few years ago in Evanston.  Now not even his wife is sure what to think.

The primary tension of the film revolves around the professor’s faulty and unreliable memory.  It’s more than possible he’s innocent, but there’s the evidence, his evasiveness, his general unseemliness.  But, then again, he honestly seems to believe he’s innocent, regardless of how hard the police or his wife press.  The audience is led to believe anything to be possible, thus we’re obliged to go along and see for ourselves, hoping a resolution comes forth.

There’s a motif that pops up early on without us even realizing it is one:  The professor’s house is revealed to have a mouse.  He tries various traps, all of which either fail or backfire, until it’s suddenly captured without fuss and placed in a cage, the family’s new pet.  This mouse is the professor, constantly having traps placed in his way, constantly avoiding them (occasionally causing some collateral damage), only to end up right where he started, running in his symbolic wheel with no hope of true escape.  No matter how hard he fights, he can’t outrun his past indiscretions, he can’t make any real progress in his life.

There’s thus a dour tone throughout, emphasized by Polly Morgan’s cinematography.  She favors low lighting, even for late-day interiors, and a teal- and sickly green-leaning color palette, often highlighting faces with these cold, dusky shades.  You really get a sense of the professor’s dark mental state, as well as the family’s deterioration.  Director Simon Kaijser – who also served as his own editor – ensures this dark tone is communicated through the use of strategic cross cuts and a decidedly clinical camera, allowing us to absorb the facts as they come while not allowing us to rest on our laurels too long.  The result is a slow burn quasi-mystery with a psychological bent.

It’s not all sunny, though, as the resolution doesn’t necessarily feel fully satisfactory, and many of the professor’s prevarications approach grating territory.  Though Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan, and Minnie Driver do well with their material, they all feel as though they’re holding something back, as though we’re not seeing their full potential on screen.  In fact, the strongest performance comes from Alexandra Shipp, whose self-confidence and natural feel help provide her supporting character with more weight than it likely required.  Brosnan’s Irish accent occasionally slips into visibility, as well, but that might only irk me.  Still, Pierce and Pearce (y’know, if they started a firm on Wall Street, I know a couple guys who’d be interested, like Luis Carruthers or Craig McDermott…) work well off of each other, maintaining the necessary tension throughout.

All in all, Spinning Man is a solid enough flick, but it doesn’t demand an immediate viewing.  Perhaps a rental at some point.  I dug the concept and the story was a decent one, but the production never rises to all that much.  It’s a bitter rumination on man’s ability to deal with his sins more than anything, making it difficult to recommend to many, especially when we can always get Pearce’s Memento at a moment’s notice.