Review: Love and Death on Long Island (1998)

This is a Resurfaced review written in 2002 or earlier. For more information, please visit this link: Resurfaced Reviews.

Love and Death on Long Island

Rating

Director

Richard Kwietniowski

Screenplay

Richard Kwietniowski (Novel: Gilbert Adair)

Length

1h 33m

Starring

John Hurt, Jason Priestley, Fiona Loewi, Sheila Hancock, Harvey Atkin, Maury Chaykin, Gawn Grainger

MPAA Rating

PG-13

Basic Plot

A widower goes to the movies to see an E.M. Forster adaptation, but winds up discovering a new side to his own emotions.

Review

Giles De’Ath (John Hurt), is a British novelist who is somewhat noted in his home country, but not very many other places. Not long after his wife’s death, he finds himself locked out of his home with his keys sitting precariously on the table just inside the door. This he observes through his mail slot.

He stands in the rain for a bit, with a poster of a film adaptation of a novel by E.M. Forster. Against his better judgment, he buys a ticket and enters the darkened theater. He sits down to see a bunch of guys peeping on undressing women. He exclaims quietly to himself, “this isn’t E.M. Forster,” and prepares to leave.

The film showing is “Hotpants College II,” and he stops dead in his tracks and sits back down. It’s not the film that captures his attention, it is one face: Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestly).

Through various attempts at discovering the star and many at trying to cover it up, De’Ath exhibits many tale-tell signs of stalking, except he hasn’t actually been physically stalking him, just mentally. He moves into the 20th Century buying TVs and VCRs, renting movies, purchasing teen magazines, and going so far as to change cigarette brands to “Chesterton,” the city where one of the magazines said Bostock lived.

One day his publisher suggests he take a trip to get his mind of things and get away from everything. Giles knows exactly where he’s going to go and flies to Long Island and gets a seedy motel room near Chesterton. Thus begins the true bit of stalking. He even tracks a dog that one man calls “Strider,” the name of Bostock’s dog.

After running into Bostock’s girlfriend’s shopping cart, not so accidentally, Giles invades their personal lives and winds up meeting his idol and extending his interest a great deal.

Hurt gives such a stirring performance that it’s hard to imagine him in any other role. He takes the character making him sympathetic, foolish and naïve all at the same time. His performance is Oscar-worthy, but could be buried by higher profile performers to come later this year.

Priestley gives a surprisingly good performance, spoofing his own teen idol status. We don’t get intensely into the character’s mind, but we can assume what he’s thinking most of the time.

The script is well written and an interesting concept. It’s a dramedy, a drama and a comedy rolled into one. With the drama side flourishing and the comedy filtering in quietly and effectively.