After Splitting from Disney last year, the industry and audiences waited with bated breath to see what the Brothers Weinstein would pull out of their hat. With the release of Derailed, starring Clive Owen, Vincent Cassel and Jennifer Aniston, we find out whether they’re still on track…
Fledgling company or not, the hyperbole surrounding The Weinstein Company continues apace this month with the opening of their inaugural feature Derailed.
Having split rather acrimoniously and very publicly from Disney last year, the industry eagerly awaited the duo’s next step. Always anxious to see Harvey on his toes, Hollywood could barely contain its glee when it looked like the Indie king wouldn’t be able to raise the necessary $490 million needed to make his new baby breath. But Harvey, being Harvey, managed to scrape the cash together and The Weinstein Company (a working title) was born – 2006 is the year the Weinsteins take on Hollywood. Again.
With a varied slate that includes a four-hour cut of Kill Bill, an extended Wolf Creek, and transsexual road movie Transamerica, proceedings kicked off in earnest last week with the UK premiere of Derailed. Billed as a Hitchcockian thriller, it was adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name. Set in Chicago and the cold-blooded world of advertising, it follows Ad Exec Charles Schine (Clive Owen) as his life is slowly dismantled after a chance encounter. Says Clive of his latest character: “It’s a very reactive part – the story comes at him. He ends up in a hotel room with a beautiful girl, and he shouldn’t be there ‘cos he’s married. He feels guilty about how he ended up in this situation…and he’s trying to deal with it the best way he can, but he sort of spirals out of control. The challenge was to make him a fallible, normal guy, to make him understandable.”
Beautiful girl. Situation. What could possibly have gone wrong? Well, that would be telling, now wouldn’t it? I will say this though; the Beautiful Girl is Jennifer Aniston. What would your husband do? What follows is Charles’ and probably every husband’s worst nightmare as he is blackmailed for vast sums of money and involved in more deaths than anyone who isn’t officially part of the armed forces should be. This year’s rent-a-psycho, the very cool Vincent Cassel, plays the psychotic blackmailer LaRoche as a charming and malevolent force of nature, something he clearly enjoys. When asked about his new Euro-villain status he is typically, well, cool: “Well, it looks like there was a lack of British villains, so now they are calling the French. I have fun doing it - the badder the guy the more fun you have.” Quite.
With a controversial rape scene that, rumour has it, left Jennifer Aniston the worse for wear, Derailed presented La Aniston with not only her first sex scene, but also her first mature role. She gives all credit to Director Mikael Hafstrom: “Thank God for directors like Mikael. It was interesting for him to take a certain personality and put it in this part. That doesn’t always happen, so I really appreciated that.” When asked about the rape scene, both Owen and Cassel downplay the difficult nature of filming sequences like that: “There’s a lot going on in those scenes which makes it a lot easier to play than if it’s just two people having sex.” Cassel: “You just have to be careful, you know, because you need to make moves and you don’t want to hurt anybody. There was nothing dark or anything like that on set.”
The Swedish director, making his English language debut was under pressure to deliver, and the casting was crucial. Did he think the ghost of Rachel Green would skew audience perceptions of Ms Aniston? “She’s a very versatile actress. When you sit and watch the film you’re, hopefully too much into the plot to start to think about that.”
In what has been a turbulent year for Jennifer Aniston, her co-stars have nothing but praise for her, Owen in particular. “She’s incredibly uncomplicated, grounded, lovely and…a real pleasure to work with. I think most of us would go a bit weird trying to deal with what she’s had to deal with. She just did her job and hung out with us after we finished shooting.” Jennifer may also want to thank Julia Roberts, who persuaded her to take the role so she could experience the delights of Clive Owen for herself. When asked how he feels about such high praise, he is typically unruffled: “Julia and Jennifer were hanging out at the same place after I’d done Closer with Julia. My name came up and she said some nice things”. Must be nice? “It’s very nice, but I say very nice things about both of them!”
With familiar faces from all walks of entertainment, and all four corners of the globe (sort of), Derailed has a truly international cast which wasn’t, says the Director, a deliberate attempt to entice European audiences to the film: “ We didn’t sit down and say ‘lets get all these actors from all these countries together’. Clive was on board from early on, we started talking about Vincent, but we weren’t sure where he was in his life. We met and he came on board, and a little while after that, Jennifer, and then we had Melissa George from Australia, so it was very international that way.”
The film was shot on location in Chicago and here at Elstree, giving Tom Conti, as Charles’ Boss, and David Morrissey a chance to play American. Although both have small roles, it’s always nice to see a familiar face. And then of course, there are the rappers. Not that having Hip Hop stars in your film is a rarity these days. What is rare, however, is getting them to actually act; Derailed allows Xzibit and RZA to do just that. Clive Owen already “knew RZA a little bit through mutual friends in LA.” Still, he was impressed with their performances “When guys from the music industry go into movies, its all a little bit gimmicky, bit I think both Xzibit and RZA showed themselves to be proper, good actors.” Cassel goes that little bit further: “I was even more impressed in a way with Xzibit than with Jennifer.” Director Hafstrom was similarly pleased, particularly when RZA flew to London at his own expense to read for the part. While other actors may feel that’s setting a dangerous precedent, Hafstrom was inspired. “Both these guys are very serious about their acting. RZA, who had the bigger part of the two in this film, took it very, very seriously, and he was sweet in his preparations. It’s not like two music guys that do a little acting as a hobby.”
The Weinsteins have taken a big gamble on Hafstrom, whose 2004 feature Evil was nominated for the Foreign Film Oscar, but with reviews ranging from awful to middling, and the Box Office not what it should be, Derailed may be just that. But as we all know it takes more than one under-performing thriller to throw the Weinsteins’ off course. Having been allowed a sneak preview of Transamerica, Felicity Huffman more than deserved her Golden Globe. And, as we all know, both Kill Bill and Wolf Creek were fantastic, so no complaints there.
The lukewarm reception of Derailed hasn’t slowed the cast down either. Jennifer Aniston is about to become even more ubiquitous (if that’s possible) with three films out by the spring, excluding Friends with Money, which opened this years Sundance festival. Clive Owen will be celebrating the first anniversary of his Golden Globe win with a starring role in the new Spike Lee joint Inside Man; the ex-Chancer will also be acting opposite Sir Maurice of Mickelwhite (that’s Michael Caine to you and me) in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men. But surely the most eagerly awaited project from a Derailed star will be Sheitan. That means Devil in Arabic, since you’re asking, and yes, it’s got Vincent Cassel in it “I just played the Devil…he’s a peasant who lives in a little village, and he’s having a baby with his sister.” See you in the queue.
By Emma Matthews
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