'Up Close and Personal': Flirting with news and love

'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."