Film Review: Unconditional Love (2002)

12 months ago (Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

When feature films with Oscar-winning cast and notable directors have to wait years for regular distribution and ultimately get released on television or video, that usually means that studios behind them didn’t have much confidence in the quality of finished product. And those who end watching those films, more than often than not, see that such reluctance was quite justified. Unconditional Love, 2002 comedy directed by P. J. Hogan, is one of such examples.

Protagonist, played by Kathy Bates, is Grace Beasley, Chicago housewife whose life comes crashing down after learning that her husband Max (played by Dan Aykroyd) is about to leave her after decades of marriage. One of the bright spots of her life, pop singer Victor Fox (played by Jonathan Pryce), has been murdered. She decides to travel to England to attend his funeral and meets Dirk Simpson (played by Rupert Everett), Victor’s gay lover who is involved in bitter inheritance dispute with Victor’s relatives who refuse to publicly admit late singer’s homosexuality. She befriends him and her new adventure also involves encounter with serial killer (played by Peter Sarsgaard) responsible for Victor’s death.

In his previous two films Australian director P. J. Hogan has established his inclination towards slightly irreverent and mildly subversive comedies that feature initially unlikeable protagonists, references to unconventional forms of sexuality and plenty of old pop music, being enthusiastically sang by characters. Unconditional Love, co-written by Hogan and his wife Jocelyn Moorehouse, doesn’t stray much from that formula. Kathy Bates, Oscar-winning actress whose character could hardly be seen as conventional film heroine on the account of her looks, does a good job and is even more impressive while using rare opportunity to display her singing skills. However, her efforts can’t compensate for generally low quality of humour. Hogan and Moorehouse have apparently lost much inspiration and jokes based around contrast between public image of Liberace-like crooner and his true homosexual nature have been looked aged even two decades ago, and they are definitely looking more dated now. Subplot involving serial killer looks like it was artificially implanted from another film. It would be unfair that to say that there aren’t some bright spots in the film, which include cameo appearance of Julie Andrews, but they are generally too rare to justify recommendation to anyone other than most devout fans of Kathy Bates.

RATING: 3/10 (+)