Mordecai Richler was among Canada's most prolific writers, a gifted man with a knack for creating eccentric characters he made us care about despite their many flaws. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his 1974 screenplay adaptation of his most celebrated novel, “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” in which a young Richard Dreyfuss gave an astonishing performance as the scheming, vicious Duddy, told "a man without land is nothing" and going after that land with an obsession that is pathological.
Richler wrote, and beautifully, about flawed men, and to the credit of Dreyfuss, we cared about the character -- I daresay we even liked him, as his relentless energy kept him moving like a pinball in a machine, bouncing from obstacle to obstacle.
Much of the same happens in “Barney's Version,” a handsomely produced new Canadian film that will be declared among the finest made in this country.
There was a time when Canadian films needed American actors to sell the picture, George C. Scott in “The Changeling” and Jack Lemmon in “Tribute” spring to mind. But not so much anymore, and it is rewarding to see more and more American actors taking work in Canadian films by choice because they like the role, or they want to do the film.
That was certainly the case with Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman in this film, each outstanding in this sprawling character study that spans 40 years in the life of Barney (Giamatti), a low-end TV producer who in a sad and pathetic way is a self-destructive mess of a human being.
We meet Barney in his sixties after the divorce from the love of his life and watch him make a nasty phone call to her new husband in which he asks the man at 3 in the morning if he wants the photos of her nude when she was in prime. We learn later that the man had an angina attack after the call, which causes Barney to smile.
Through flashbacks we see his entire life unfold, beginning with his early days in Rome, where he marries his first wife, Clara (Rachel Lefevre), an unstable but vibrant redhead, because he believes she is carrying his child. Turns out she has been a tad generous with her sexual favors and Barney is not the child's father. Worse, the baby is stillborn.
Angry, Barney lashes out and leaves her calling him from a hospital bed from which she cannot get up. She truly wants to reconcile, but Barney's best friend Boogie (Scott Speedman) neglects to give him the message. Two days later, Barney finds her dead, having committed suicide.
Then comes his second wife (Minnie Driver), shrill and annoying, and he marries her even though he’s tired of being near her. At his wedding he meets the love of his life, Miriam (Rosamund Pike) and quickly begins to pursue her.
