'Up Close and Personal': Flirting with news and love
By Primastuti Handayani
JAKARTA (JP): Up Close and Personal is a newsroom movie in which the characters care more about the smooch than the scoop.
Missing the suspense of All The President's Men and the convincing arguments in The Paper, director Jon Avnet's Up Close and Personal, while touching on the journalistic traits of idealism and dedication, unfortunately sidesteps the reporting angle to concentrate on anchorwoman Sallyane Atwater's (Michelle Pfeiffer) love life.
A simple girl from Reno has big ambition -- so big that she fakes her CV while applying for a job as a TV reporter. Atwater finally lands a job with WMIA TV in Miami, "the heartbeat of American Riviera", to only find herself making coffee for senior journalist and producer Warren Justice (Robert Redford).
Her dream simmers until Justice discovers her hidden talent. "She eats up the lens" is his comment on Atwater's first appearance before the camera.
The inevitable workplace romance develops to the tune of David Foster and Dianne Warren's Because You Love Me, performed nicely by Grammy Award winner Celine Dion. Atwater's career escalates as their romance gets hotter and hotter. She moves to IBS TV in Philadelphia, a bigger station which gives her the job of her life: TV anchor.
Although Up Close and Personal is centered around newsrooms, it is just a simple love story between Atwater and Justice. The movie does not delve into news gathering or reporting.
"What interested me most was the fact that it was a good, tough, love story about two people on the raw edge of life, drawn to each other on dangerous terrain," Redford commented on the movie shot in Florida and Philadelphia.
Up Close and Personal is actually based on the real story of the late Jessica Savitch, a journalist herself. But director Avnet changed the scenario for marketing reasons.
"I had no interest in doing a period piece about the media and was not interested at this time in my life of doing a story about a woman self-destructing on her way to the top," Avnet said.
Avnet, whose Risky Business and Fried Green Tomatoes propelled him to success, applied different lighting techniques on each star to underline their characters.
Up Close and Personal with its star-studded cast earned US$11 million at 1,506 theaters throughout the United States during its weekend premier last March. It topped the box office in only a week.
Pfeiffer plays Atwater with great confidence. Appearing in the beginning as a rookie, wearing a shocking-pink two-piece dress, with too much makeup, she shifts smoothly from one character to the next, from a humble coffee maker into a respectable anchor in a tailored three-piece suit.
Pfeiffer, a former beauty queen, had her trademark long, blonde hair transformed into brunette bob to create a professional look. Pfeiffer, who received Academy Award nominations for Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Love Field, transforms herself from the naive rookie to the suave professional with a snap of the fingers.
For Pfeiffer, playing opposite Redford was "a dream come true".
"This was exciting because I had always wanted to work with him. I've always been a big fan," Pfeiffer commented on Redford.
Pfeiffer first started to shine after The Witches of Eastwick, a movie in which she had to compete with Cher, Susan Sarandon and Jack Nicholson.
The legendary Robert Redford, a 1980 Academy Award winner, still radiates as one of Hollywood's top actor-directors at 61 year old.
Redford's portrayal of Justice does not meet his work in All the President's Men with Dustin Hoffman. In Up Close and Personal, Redford is just a senior anchor with a hunch for exclusive news, not a Washington Post reporter uncovering the Watergate tapes.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid established Redford as a star together with partner Paul Newman.
His works continued in The Way We were with singer and actress Barbra Streisand, The Sting, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Out of Africa with Oscar winner Meryl Streep and Indecent Proposal, opposite Demi Moore.
Redford directed Hollywood's sexiest actor Brad Pitt as well as Tom Skerritt (Picket Fences), Craig Sheffer and Emily Llyod in A River Runs Through It in 1992.
Marcia McGrath, an anchorwoman at the IBS, is played by Stockard Channing. McGrath is portrayed by Channing as a cold but ambitious woman who thinks of nothing else but her career and popularity.
Channing started her acting career in Broadway in Six Degrees of Separation, for which she earned a Tony.
Her movie career started with The Fortune opposite Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty. But it was Grease with Olivia Newton John and John Travolta that catapulted her to success.
Atwater's agent, Bucky Terranova (Joe Mantegna) has style and the ability to influence people to his benefit.
Mantegna is perfect in the role. Often cast as a member of the mobs, Mantegna describes Terranova as a gentle person. Although Terranova uses his talent to influence others, he still has the heart to help Atwater.
Mantegna was a mafioso in Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather III and Barry Lenvinson's Bugsy. He made his first appearance in Compromising Positions.
Justice's ex-wife, Joanna Kennely, an ambitious reporter and rival to her husband, is played with class by Kate Nelligan.
Nelligan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in The Prince of Tides, started her acting career in London's theaters.
This is her third partnership with Pfeiffer. They also teamed up in Frankie and Johnnie and Wolf.
Atwater's best friend and best cameraman, Ted Jackson, is played by Glenn Plummer. Although Plummer does not have much of a part, the way he holds the camera may fool everyone into believing he's for real.
Plummer grabbed moviegoers attention as a Porsche driver in Keanu Reeves' Speed. He is most known for his television roles in Equal Justice, LA Law and China Beach.
Up Close and Personal is unfortunately a waste of he all-star cast's talents. Its redeeming trait is that, although a love story, Up Close and Personal is not silly. But then, as Paul McCartney put it, "love isn't a silly thing."