Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler's APARTMENT TROUBLES hits dvd; nice Chekhov!

OK: The movie's a mess. But, gheesh, it's sort of an endearing mess -- funny in odd ways rather than the expected, and as ditsy, charming and irritating as its two leading ladies, Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler, who also wrote and directed the film. You might call this a "vanity production," except that the filmmakers are as apt to show their worst sides as their better ones. Also, they do have a bundle of talent, even if it's oddball rather than mainstream.

Ms Prediger (shown at right) and Ms Weixler (below) both have a barrel of indie-film credits (Weixler has 37, Prediger 22) so they've been around the block a few times. Here, they take a well-known fact of life these days (nobody except the very wealthy can afford an apartment in New York City or its environs) and use it a leaping-off point for their adventures -- which prove to be a kind of first-class road trip to Los Angeles and back again.

That their film lasts only 77 minutes is probably wise, and the fact that it ends on a strange, lovely

and appealing note will send any Chekhov lovers in the audience levitating in a state of grace. The Russian master and his work figure in this film a couple of times and in major ways -- firstly in a weird piece of performance art that the two girls, Nicole (Weixler) and Olivia (Prediger) decide to act out on a kind of America's Got Talent TV show. It's a odd homage to Anton Chekhov and his play, The Seagull, in both the kind of amateur theater production it appears to be imitating and in its use of some of the dialog from the play. What's more, these lines appear again at film's end, this time performed by Weixler in what is the most beautiful rendering of them--visual and verbal--I've yet seen/heard.

I am guessing either or both of these actresses did Chekhov in high school or drama school and probably fell in love with him and his creation, Nina, from The Seagull. In any case, the movie's use of these few lines at the finale gives it a strange and slightly Armageddon-like quality, which is probably not amiss in our current times (just as it would not have been in Chekhov's own).

Also in the cast are three more noted and popular performers who were somehow corralled into joining the cast, which proves all to the good. Jeffrey Tambor -- shown above, right, and currently riding and definitely adding to the heights of Transparent (the double meaning of this terrific title word only became apparent to me as I typed it now). Tambor plays the girls' odd landlord (everything and everybody in this movie is odd), who for some reason enjoys showering in their apartment but is not happy about their consistently tardy and under-market rent payments.

Once they arrive in Los Angeles, they're given a lift by an even odder character played by Will Forte (above, right), who appears again toward the end to goose the movie into a kind of "full circle" thing. Forte is fresh and funny (and real), as usual.

But it is Megan Mullally (above, left) as Nicole's odd aunt, who gives the movie a consistent lift. Clearly sexually attracted to Olivia, as well as wanting to help the pair, she simply can't keep her hands to herself, making Prediger's character as uncomfortable as it makes us viewers amused. (That Mullally and Prediger could pass for mother and daughter adds a soupçon of further naughtiness to the proceedings.)

And that's pretty much it: They come to L.A., they do silly things, and then they leave again for NYC. But beneath the veneer lies longing and frustration of artists and women who cannot express themselves and be heard, so the expression comes out in, yes, odd ways. In a sense, both these young women are Ninas -- but let's hope as in the earlier, rather than the later, portion of Chekhov's play.

Prediger, looking like a lost little girl struggling to grow up, has a lovely, true and dulcet singing voice, which we hear only haphazardly at the aunt's dinner party. I'd like to hear it again.

Weixler, whom I have in the past compared to a young Meryl Streep, here looks more like the youthful and oddly beautiful Bette Davis. The actress has an edge that she knows how to use, and she does so quite purposefully here.

If it sounds like I am raving about this strange little mistake of a movie, well, so be it. It certainly will not prove to be to most audiences' tastes. But for those willing to take a chance, or who love Chekhov, or enjoy any of all of the performers mentioned above, it is worth that chance. As a whole, it may go right by you, but certain little scenes, I swear, you'll remember for quite some time (particularly if you're a cat person).

Apartment Troubles, from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Gravitas Ventures, will appear on DVD this coming Tuesday, October 6, for purchase or rental.    

ANTON CHEKHOV'S THE DUEL, from Dover Kosashvili, opens at Film Forum

Back in the spring of 2002, a film from USSR-born Israeli writer/director Dover Kosashvili opened in New York City. Late Marriage (Hatuna Meuheret) -- an enormously sexual, smart and angry broadside against Israeli fundamen-
talism, knocked the socks off a lot of us -- though it may have appeared that its strong and sexy leading man Lior Askenazi (Walk on Water) was the linchpin many of us remembered most. For his part, Mr. Kosashvili went on to make Matana MiShamayim (English title: Gift from Above) in 2003, which, though nominated for eleven Israeli Film Academy awards, was not much seen outside its home country.

Now comes this director's ANTON CHEKHOV'S THE DUEL (with a screenplay by the film's co-producer Mary Bing), an English-language adaptation of the Russian master's novella.  Cast with some lesser-known but top-flight U.K.talent, the movie takes place in the Caucuses (for which Croatia proves a sumptuous stand-in) and details the plight of a young aristocrat (Laevsky, whose behavior and attitude define the term ne're-do-well), his lively and attractive mistress (Nadya, toward whom he is feeling less and less kindly disposed), a highly intelligent and somewhat condescending scientist (Von Koren, who has taken an intense dislike to Laevsky) plus other other assorted friends and neighbors.

Once you get past their accents, this cast struck me as doing the best job I have yet seen of Irish, Brits and Scots playing Chekhov's Russians.  Each actor manages to capture, via languid gesture and subtle intonation, that peculiar combination of bored entitlement and barely perceptible unease that likely attends a time in which enormous political/social/economic change is developing.   I would guess, as well, that Mr. Kosashvili is more than a little proficient in the English language because his cast nails every moment, large and small, so expertly that he had to have been able to coach them -- as talented as they may be -- regarding what he wanted from at least some of those moments.  

Andrew Scott (shown at right in the two photos above), as the little twat Laevsky, will have you wanting to throttle him in no time. This actor's spectacular talent at finding innumerable ways to be insufferably annoying (until -- and this is Chekhov's great gift for rich, humane characterization -- you actually begin to love him for it) is something to see -- as is his bizarre nervous breakdown over a chess board.  Tobias Menzies (shown below) as Von Koren, brings both sturdiness and stud-liness to his role, his jealousy for Laevsky's station and what the man gets away with kept barely, but quite handsomely, in check.  Fiona Glasgott (shown at left in the two photos above, and also at bottom) turns Nadya into a whirlwind of contradiction: loving, needy, highly sexual, and finally more vulnerable than either we or she suspects.  In the supporting cast, Niall Buggy makes a sensible, kindly doctor, while Michelle Fairley captures both the imperiousness and fear of an important lady of the town, who, in one of the movie's strongest scenes, gives Nadya a sudden and nasty ultimatum.

As is often the case in Chekhov, characters talk at, rather than to, one another -- with the expected consequences.  Indirection is the order of the day, and when something goes wrong, well... blame the servants.  If sexuality is closer to the surface here than in Anton's turn-of-the-century time, what we see is still light years away from the usual panting and glossy nudity we're used to observing on film.  The many details we catch along the way -- from the serving of soup to some flirting and bargaining in a millinery shop -- are captured succinctly, and the location cinematography should have travel agents booking Croatia (see below) like crazy.

The friend who accompanied me to the screening, having just read the novella upon which the film is based, felt that screenplay did not work very well. Not having read the novella myself, I can only say that the film held me rapt from scene one.  By its melancholy finale, I also felt that real change, as well as some growth, had occurred for our onscreen friends.  And Mr. Kosashvili, I think, is slowly amassing quite a resume.

Anton Chekhov's The Duel opens for a two-week run this Wednesday, April 28, at Film Forum in New York City.