3. “High Fidelity” (2000)
A high proportion of Frears’ very best work is based on material that started life in a different form — often literary — making him one of the great book-to-film adaptors of our time. But as such, he’s even more than usually at the mercy of the quality of the screenplay, and of how well the screenwriter understands both the original material and the demands of the new medium in which it will appear. But the stars aligned brilliantly for “High Fidelity,” which is a peach of a screenplay, based with deep love and understanding on Nick Hornby‘s novel, but written for the screen by eventual star John Cusack along with co-writers (and co-producers) Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis. Their most impressive trick is managing to preserve the soul of the acerbic, bittersweet insights into 20-/30-something dating and relationship rituals while transposing the action across the Atlantic from London to Chicago. Cusack, enjoying one of two great collaborations with Frears, plays Rob, a record-store owner and the recent ex of Laura (Iben Hjelje). With an obsessive’s love for listmaking (however would he feel about this film’s no. 3 placement here?) he sets out to track down the women who comprise his “top 5” worst breakups in an effort to determine what the hell is wrong with him, efforts partly aided and partly obstructed by his obnoxious muso employees played by Todd Louiso and a breakout, scene-stealing Jack Black. As fresh and funny as Rob is morose and self-critical, the best surprise it has in store (aside from that killer soundtrack) is the unexpectedly sweet, uplifting wisdom of its conclusions, which means so much more because our identification with its gently bemused, fuck-up characters is so strong.
2. “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988)
Frears has hopscotched all over the place in terms of genre, location, tone, medium and even quality, so much so that it’s rare to find any “type” of film that he hasn’t returned to more than once. But there was one time he put an indelible stamp on a form with his very first time at bat: Just one year after the undisciplined “Sammy And Rosie Get Laid,” he made one of the greatest and most wickedly enjoyable costume dramas of all time. “Dangerous Liaisons,” adapted by Christopher Hampton from his own play, which was itself based on the 18th-century novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos represents one of the apexes of period cinema purely because of all the ways it avoids the pitfalls of stuffiness and reverence that often dog this most frequently uninspired of genres. Which is not to say that Frears has no interest in the knick-knacks and frills and corsetry of the set and costumes — indeed, he positively fetishizes the production design. But he does it with such arch wit — matching the verbal dazzle of Hampton’s dialogue phrase for phrase — that it results in a most modern-feeling film about love as a game and seduction as a sport, but one that yields considerable collateral damage. Huge props are due the supporting cast, from the soon-to-be-corrupted ingenues (Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves) to the tremulous and fragile object of the game, played by an Oscar-nominated Michelle Pfeiffer. But the film really lives in the interplay between Glenn Close and John Malkovich, two magnificent actors given possibly their defining roles as the decadent, dissolute aristocrats carelessly batting the lives and reputations of others around as so much extended foreplay. As great as both actors consistently are, we’re not sure either has ever topped the performances of pure, powdered, self-defeating spite they give here.
1. “The Grifters” (1990)
A quick confession: Not only did my love for Frears’ delicious, delirious adaptation of Jim Thompson‘s novel contribute strongly to the urge behind writing this feature, it also made me want to rank the list, solely so it could take the number one slot. Undervalued despite its four Oscar nods (of which Best Director was one) this completely brilliant neo-noir, scripted by writer Donald E. Westlake, featuring three standout performances from Annette Bening, Anjelica Huston and John Cusack and a slick, sick, Oedipally twisted plot typical of Thompson’s grimy style, it’s got lashings of style and unsavory sex all pulsing and throbbing like a cigar burn under Elmer Bernstein‘s impeccably sleazy, oddly jaunty score. Cusack plays Roy, a small-time con-man and the estranged son of longtime con-woman Lily (Huston), who is double crossing the gangster bookie boss for whom she works, shortening the odds on long-shot horses at the racetrack. Roy is seeing Myra (Bening), a prostitute who was formerly part of a gang of long-con grifters and who wants to partner up with Roy. But a fateful encounter with Lily (and also with a fist in the stomach from a disgruntled mark) lands Roy in the hospital and, under an obligation to the manipulative mother for whom he has not entirely filial feelings, building to one of the best, most grotesque, dumb-luck, anticlimax endings in modern cinema. The squalid Greek tragedy that unfolds is largely a three-hander, made utterly riveting by the triple-career-high it represents and also the best-ever work from frequent DP Oliver Stapleton, but this is also one of the times that Frears’ own presence is felt most strongly. Again, with such an eclectic filmography it’s hard to find ironclad “rules,” but his innate facility with the dynamics of dysfunctional, exploitative or socially unacceptable sexual relationships is one of the throughlines to several of his very best films, and along with “Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Grifters” is his masterpiece in that regard. Mostly, however, as befits such an exemplary noir (the most stylized of all genres), it’s just effortlessly, sublimely cool: as dark and headily sweet as poisoned licorice.
Honorable Mentions:
Perhaps there will be some surprise that we’ve shown no love for Frears’ Oscar-winning “The Queen” (for which he also got the second of his two Oscar nominations to date), but that’s because we don’t really feel much love for it, and a recent rewatch made it feel, despite Helen Mirren‘s fine turn as Her Maj, even more low-stakes and oddly unengaging than we’d remembered. Much more interesting is his debut feature “Gumshoe,” starring Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw, beautifully shot by Chris Menges and scored by Andrew Lloyd Webber (!), which is an affectionate spoof/homage to the detective genre set in Liverpool.
Frears has about twice as many TV credits to his name as he does feature films, so we can’t say we’ve seen every one of them, but of those we do know, 1987’s “December Flower” is pretty great; 2003’s “The Deal” is the justly celebrated (and superior) precursor to “The Queen,” also starring Michael Sheen as Tony Blair; and 2000’s ambitious, starry television event “Fail Safe,” based on the same novel that yielded the 1964 movie, was a live broadcasting coup for CBS and starred George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel, Brian Dennehy, Noah Wyle, Don Cheadle and Sam Elliott.
Back in feature-film territory, recent years have seen Frears miss as often as he has hit, but even his lesser titles often boast redeeming performances, such as Judi Dench‘s in 2005’s very amiable “Mrs. Henderson Presents,” young Anthony Borrows‘ in the underseen but tenderhearted “Liam,” and even Gemma Arterton‘s in the curious misfire “Tamara Drewe,” and Dustin Hoffman‘s in the widely unloved but still very watchable “Hero.” It’s a wildly eclectic slate of films to consider as one body of work, but therein lies the fun — let us know your own favorite Frearses in the comments below.