Second World War is often considered a “good war”, and not only by politicians that use it as a way to promote simple military solution for complex global problems. It was also very good for Hollywood, providing excellent background and inspiration for many popular and classic films. However, some of the films dealing with Second World War happened to be bad and one of them was Shining Through, 1992 spy thriller written and directed by David Seltzer, known as one of the more notorious flops of its time.
Film is based on the novel by Susan Isaacs. It begins with the prologue set in present day, with elderly woman named Linda Voss (played by Melanie Griffith) being interviewed by BBC for the documentary about the life of women in Nazi Germany. Through flashback plot goes more than half a century back, in 1940 New York. Linda Voss is a now young woman, a daughter of German Jewish father and Irish mother who has ability to fluently speak German. She gets a job as a secretary in the office of Ed Leland (played by Michael Douglas), lawyer specialised in international trade. She begins to notice some strange details about her boss with whom she would also fall in love and concludes that he is a spy for US government, working on delicate missions in a time when USA is still neutral in the war. Two of them start an affair that would end after American entry of war. Ed is later revealed to be US Army Colonel working for Office of Strategic Service and, in order to make up for abandoning Linda, agrees to bring to her staff. When one of Ed’s most valuable agents in Nazi Germany dies in mysterious circumstances, Linda volunteers to replace him due to her ability to speak German with perfect Berliner accent. Ed agrees and sends her in Berlin where she, working as a cook, is to infiltrate top Nazi households and collect the information about German secret weapon known as “flying bomb”. Despite some mistakes that nearly get her cover blown, she manages to get job as nanny in the home of widowed General Franze-Otto Diettrich (played by Liam Neeson). Despite her mission being extremely dangerous Linda also tries to locate some of her Jewish relatives who are apparently hiding in Berlin because of Nazi persecution.
Shining Through was an ambitious project with clear Oscar ambitions. It was originally slated for late Autumn 1991 release in an apparent attempt to coincide with 50th anniversary of US entry into Second World and thus exploit patriotic and nostalgic feelings of elderly Academy voters. Its release was, for some unknown reason, postponed until early January 1992. In the end, it won Razzie and quite deservingly according to most critics and even the fans of Isaacs’ novel. While there are some good things in Shining Through, there are mostly reflection of a large budget – a convincing makeup that aged Melanie Griffith in the prologue, locations and studios of East Berlin being available after reunification of Germany and Michael Kamen’s operatic musical score. Everything else is more or less ruined by Seltzer’s awful script that not only tries to use as many spy film cliches as possible, but does it in a way that insults viewers’ intelligence. The worst thing is the protagonist – she is actually quite incompetent and often gets herself in dangerous situations that could doom not only her, but fellow agents and other people, but the audience is supposed to cheer for her and accept her as heroic and capable character. Even worse is Seltzer’s idea to have Linda being sent to extremely important spy mission behind enemy lines without any proper training, which also corresponds with her getting the job of a spy simply because she watched plenty of Hollywood spy films. This smug celebration of Hollywood as source of professional wisdom is only matched by Seltzer’s even more idiotic idea of having top US intelligence official penetrating Nazi Germany in person without even bothering to learn German. And it culminates with violent and melodramatic showdown at German-Swiss border crossing, which would infuriate anyone even remotely familiar with delicate position Switzerland as landlocked country surrounded by Axis territory was finding itself during most of the war. Most of the problems with script are made worse by miscasting which, of course, includes protagonist. Melanie Griffith in this film doesn’t look very attractive nor intelligent and her character is too often quite annoying for audience. Romantic subplot doesn’t work either and Michael Douglas, whose character is bland and underwritten, lacking any chemistry with Griffith. Liam Neeson is tolerable, but only because his character doesn’t appear that much in the film. His presence would only remind viewers of his role in similarly-themed but infinitesimally better Schindler’s List. In the end, Shining Through shows how the line that separates Oscars from Razzies is very thin and so easy to cross when you lack inspiration or talent.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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