Comedy is a serious business. Its authors must always consider that what they think as very funny might not be funny at all to their targetted audience. Good illustration of the phenomenon can be found in newspaper cartoon showing legendary shoe eating scene from Chaplin’s The Gold Rush being shown in the cinema. While the audience in gallery is laughing, the audience is ground floor is silent, because the scene does look more like something they are familiar with than like someone’s piece of imagination. The author of this review was reminded of the cartoon while watching Drowning Mona, 2000 black comedy by Nick Gomez.
The plot is set in Verplanck, small town in the western part of New York. The prologue explains that in 1980s Crvena Zastava, Yugoslav auto manufacturing company, selected the town and freely gave away its (in)famous Yugo cars to each of its citizens as part of promotion in ultimately failed attempt to conquer US market. Years later, due to various reasons, people are is still using the old vehicles with all the risks that come with it. For Mona Dearly (played by Bette Midler) this ends with a car falling into river where she would drown. Everyone thinks of it as unfortunate accident until car mechanic Lucinda (played by Kathleen Wilhoite) inspects the wrecks and finds that someone has been tampering with the breaks. Wyatt Rash (played by Danny DeVito), local chief of police, now suddenly has to investigate murder. His task seems almost impossible, because Mona was hated by anyone in town and everyone had good reasons to kill her. Long list suspects involves Mona’s husband Phil (played by William Fichtner) who was cheating her with a waitress Rona Mace (played by Jamie Lee Curtis); son Jeph (played by Marcus Thomas) who reportedly lost an arm in argument with his mother; and, finally, Jeph’s business partner Bobby Calzone (played by Casey Affleck). The latter has motive that might complicate Rash’s life, because he is about to wed Rash’s daughter Ellen (played by Neve Campbell). As investigation continues, many suspects become increasingly nervous and start making moves that would further complicate the situation.
Creators of Drowning Mona apparently tried to make quirky black comedy very much like those that were all the rage in 1990s American independent cinema. What audience might see on the screen, however, looks more like “high concept” comedy very much like those delivered by big studio. Additional problem for this film, at least in places and times different from rich, smug and self-confident Clinton’s America, is that scriptwriter Peter Steinfeld believes that something like a person driving a Yugo is hilarious by itself. Yet, in many parts of the world, where people are, with a lack of better alternatives, forced drive vehicles two and three times older than themselves, the image isn’t funny at all. Even if it is, director Gomez simply overuses the gag, showing the clear lack of inspiration and ability to provide anything original. Gomez also fails to use the full potential of blue collar milieu depicted in the film and the film, despite use of often confusing flashbacks, fails to show why the title character was so odious to her fellow citizens. Things aren’t improved with predictable happy ending, which is much at odds with dark and cynical rest of the film. Mostly good cast does what it can with the bad material, especially tragically underused character actor William Fichtner with his role. He leaves much better impression than mostly disappointing Bette Midler and Jamie Lee Curtis. Younger actors, like Affleck and Thomas, are much better and Neve Campbell shows somewhat surprising ability to carry comic role, with one scene even providing some sort of fan service to those who appreciated her in Wild Things. However, all that isn’t enough to compensate for too many missed opportunities of this film.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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