June 12, 1998

Showings:
June 14 - Colonial Promenade 5, 7pm

A few years earlier, Billy bet on the Bills to win the Superbowl and lost out big. He couldn't pay his debts, so his bookie made him confess to a crime he didn't commit, had him spend five years in jail. To explain his disappearance, he told everyone he knew that he had taken a top-secret job with the government and would be away for a long while.

Did he fool anyone into believing this story? No. But that didn't stop him from thinking he had everyone fooled.

Now he's back in town, and ready to reenter his life. Of course, no one cares: his friends welcome him back with such a blase attitude that you wonder if they knew he was gone in the first place. And his parents barely remember him, let alone acknowledge him as their son.

But for some reason, he wants to make a good impression. To do this, he abducts Layla (Christina Ricci) from a dance studio. He wants her to act as his loving wife. He wants to take her to his parents's house for dinner and let her brag to them about what a wonderful man he is. This way he'll gain their respect. If she doesn't do this, he will kill her.

That's essentially the set up of Buffalo '66, a phenomenal film filled with real, likable characters, outlandish yet real situations, and a lot of heart. This is the best movie I have seen so far this year.

The movie follows Billy and Layla as they grow closer and build a dependency on each other. Meanwhile, Billy learns to let his guard down - he also learns that life goes on without him, and that there is more to it than appearances and reputations.

One of the film's most interesting facets is the amount of questions it raises and does not try to answer. For example: after she is abducted, Layla complies with Billy's wishes without even putting up a fight. Why, when at his parents' house, does she boast and boast about how great a husband Billy is? (Of course his parents don't buy it. They've seen through Billy's disguises for a long time, and besides, they have their own problems to deal with: Billy's mother [Angelica Huston] absorbs herself in football like an addict loves a drug, and his father (Ben Gazzara) acts like he's on a different planet.) Perhaps because she too senses that Billy's threats are as empty as his lies. Or perhaps she's a just as much of a loser as Billy and because of that, she bonds instantly with him. That's my thought at least.

In fact, many things go unexplained in Buffalo '66 -taken for granted, forgotten about, just plain ignored. Normally such contrivances would bother me in a movie. Here, for some reason, it's all part of the charm.

Vincent Gallo plays Billy. He also directed, co-wrote the script, and composed the score for the film. He interjects such energy and freshness into it, and into Billy Brown himself, that I was literally captivated from start to finish.

The story follows very much in the spirit of John Cassavettes' films, which seem to have inspired much of it. It moves unpredictably, uses a great mixture of humor (often slapstick) and drama (often subtly), and it uses these factors to great emotional effect. These people are losers, but they are likeable and very, very real, even at their most absurd.

But what separates this movie from Cassavettes's work is the ingenuity of the camera work. Frames shorten, stretch, are put into clay-mation-like slo-mo, placed into complex montages. Shots are angled smartly and set from unexpected points of view, build an electricity to them that keeps you glued.

And then there are the supporting performances. Huston and Gazzarra (a Cassavettes regular) bring a tragic quirkiness to Billy's parents; their dysfunctionalism seems to be a means of representing their great disappointment in Billy. And Christina Ricci, best known as Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family movies, gives Layla a sad seductiveness. With her droopy eyes and innocent pout, she makes Layla into a mystery that begs to be solved, into the type of person who wants nothing more than to be fully understood in a place where no one wants to understand.

Eyal Goldshmid I am a fiction writer supporting myself as a government clerk for the US army. Until I can fully live off writing, I plan to milk all the luxury I can from the American taxpayer. Other Articles I've Written