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 Okay,
I'll say it again: time travel stories don't work. No, let's clarify
that - time travel stories don't work unless you take the time to
really think them through. They're like logic puzzles which you can
either choose to deal with…or not. But you have to pick one. It's
also generally a good idea, when doing time travel stuff, to get your
history right. Now, this might all seem obvious to you and me, but
it apparently never occurred to anyone involved in the production
of Kate & Leopold.
This romantic comedy is such an airy piece of fluff that it practically
floats away before your very eyes. Not that there's anything wrong
with fluff, I'm more than partial to a bit of meringue myself and
if it has Hugh Jackman in it…so much the better, but this movie
is so determinedly inconsequential and so contemptuous of its audience
that it's all but impossible to relax and enjoy the show.
Meg Ryan, in a return to the genre that made her a star, plays Kate,
a lovably inept career girl (stop me if you've heard this before)
living in a rather gorgeous apartment in New York City with ex-boyfriend
Stuart (Liev Schreiber) upstairs. Kate and Stuart were an item for
four years, but she apparently tired of his obsessive search for
a portal through the time/space continuum.
As you do.
Anyway, he eventually finds one and goes back to spy on his great-grandfather,
Leopold the Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman), who was visiting America
in 1876 looking for a wealthy woman to marry. Leopold spots the
odd looking stranger and follows him all the way back to the present.
Thing is, Leopold is something of an inventor and was working on
creating a little thing called the "elevator" so when he vanishes
into the future all the elevators stop working, with the result
that Stuart plummets down an elevator shaft and is whisked away
to hospital, leaving the Duke in the skeptical hands of Kate and
her wannabe actor brother, Charlie (Breckin Meyer).
From this point on you can probably work out the story for yourselves,
so I won't bother to go into all the incredibly derivative cutesy/romantic
stuff. You know, the horseback ride through central park, the instruction
in love given to the hapless Charlie, the romantic dinner on the
roof, and on and on. It's as if writers Steven Rogers (Hope Floats)
and James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted) had purchased one of those
screenwriting programs that assembles all the story elements for
you. They clearly think that women will watch any old tripe if it's
presented as a romance novel, though you'd have thought that Rogers,
at least, would have learned something after penning the turgid
and poorly received Hope Floats.
They are also counting on no-one in their audience noticing the
glaring "ew!" factor: Stuart and Kate were an item for four years,
Leopold is Stuart's great-grandfather, Leopold and Kate become…Ew!
Now there's an interesting twist on incest…
As if the vapidness of the storyline wasn't enough, their contempt
for their target audience carries over to their lackasdaisical attitude
towards history. According to Rogers and Mangold, 1876 appears to
be somewhere in the eighteenth century. Or so Jackman's ridiculous
embroidered costume would seem to indicate. Such an elaborate outfit
might have been worn for formal court events (though by 1876 it
is highly unlikely), but never for social gatherings. And while
we're on the subject, the riding boots would have been a big no-no
too, though they do add to his Mills & Boone cover-boy look. But
this isn't the least of it. Leopold is working on his elevator invention
(his valet is called Otis, geddit?), but the first power elevator
was installed in a New York grain elevator in 1853, and the first
passenger elevator in a department store four years later. Both
were Otis machines, though he didn't invent the elevator, merely
a safety device to ensure that an accident wouldn't result in a
swift ride to oblivion.
Wouldn't you have thought that for such a pivotal plot device, someone
would have taken the time to type "elevator history" on Google?
By the way, there really was a Duke of Albany, and his name really
was Leopold. He was the son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert,
and was the first of her children to be delivered using anaesthetic.
He was also the first of her children to be diagnosed as hemophiliac,
which eventually caused his death in 1884. So why choose a real
historical figure? Like the rest of the story, it makes no sense.
Ryan and Jackman both look adorable, but there is little chemistry.
It's one of those strange productions where you're seeing one actor
who has been doing this for years (Ryan) paired with another on
his way up (Jackman). Both actors are clearly phoning in their performances
- the roles simply make no demands on them to do anything else.
There isn't a vestige of originality or wit in the whole sad enterprise.
Still, if you just love Meg Ryan in romantic comedy mode, and you
don't mind checking your brains in at the door, there's a dim and
distant chance you might go for Kate & Leopold.
My advice would be to save your hard earned cash.
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