For his role in “Barney’s Version,” Paul Giamatti won a Golden Globe in the category of best actor in a comedy or musical. But this movie isn’t really funny and you sure can’t dance to it. However, it is Giamatti’s unique sad sack charm and ability to calibrate a potentially overdone character part that counters a natural aversion to today’s version of “Barney.” Based on the 1997 novel by Mordecai Richler, Canada’s lesser answer to Philip Roth, the screenplay adaptation by Michael Konyves tries to offer a distasteful but still sympathetic Barney Panofsky.
By casting Giamatti, television director Richard J. Lewis made the choice that saves an initially sardonic picture, which suddenly becomes maudlin in the seemingly endless final half-hour. Only the unconventional leading man — known for making depressives delightful in “American Splendor,” “Sideways,” and HBO’s “John Adams” — could sell a protagonist who transgresses with so little shame.
Through flashes back and forth in the adult life of a successful television producer from Montreal’s Jewish community, the movie traces the reasons why Barney’s karma makes him due for the wallop he eventually gets.
‘Barney’s Version’
| » Rating 3 out of 5 Stars |
| » Stars: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Minnie Driver |
| » Director: Richard J. Lewis |
| » Rated: R: for language and some sexual content |
| » Running time: 132 minutes |
Unlike his avant-garde artist friends, Barney is a sellout. After helping to drive his first wife (Rachelle Lefevre) to suicide in Italy, Barney resorts to career nepotism and then marries into a wealthy family back home. But during his wedding reception with the shrewish second Mrs. P (depicted by Minnie Driver), Barney meets the woman who would all-too-soon become his saintly third wife, Miriam (“An Education’s” Rosamund Pike).
A mysterious incident will hasten the dumping of wife No. 2 for wife No. 3. Barney’s longtime best friend and rival Boogie (Scott Speedman) will get caught doing something that may or may not lead to Boogie’s untimely death. Did Barney do it? Either way, things don’t end well for the anti-hero as he takes the long-suffering Miriam for granted and faces the ravages of old age.
Aside from Giamatti’s performance, the picture’s one other saving grace is Dustin Hoffman as Barney’s eccentric but loving father, Izzy. Hoffman shares scenes with Giamatti that have an emotional power this “Version” otherwise lacks.
I wish they had worked with better filmmakers who might have better tamed an unwieldy narrative and taken full advantage of the presence of two immense acting talents.
