It's all in the Eye of the Beholder. One person's trash is another's treasure, right? Wrong, when it comes to the clanger director Stephan Elliott has just thrown onto the big screen. The film, Eye of the Beholder, is Elliott's first set outside of his native Australia. You'll recall his dazzling Priscilla Queen of the Desert of 1993. You might not remember his less spectacular outback movie called Welcome to Woop Woop from 1997. And, trust me, you don't want to know about Eye of the Beholder, which is a cinematic disaster.
The movie takes place in various cities, mostly in America. The transitions between cities are all done rather nicely with the use of snow domes. Unfortunately the plot is not so lucky. We could certainly use some help in unraveling that--beginning with basic things, like, what on earth is this film about? Who are these people and why are they there.
The plot begins with promise. Ewan McGregor is a topnotch spy with more technological gadgetry than Bond saw in all 19 oh his films put together. k.d. lang acts as his life line--the woman at the end of the phone who tells him his assignments and keeps him together. She also acts as something of an interpreter for us, conveniently explaining at one point that he's never been the same since his wife and child left.
k.d. sends Ewan off to investigate a highly delicate case, concerning the son of the unit's director. Which leads Ewan to Ashley Judd. He first sees her in an Art Gallery, and then in a house, where she hacks some guy to pieces with a knife and then bursts into tears saying Merry Christmas Daddy.
Okay, so far so good. We have the spy, we have the woman, we have multiple mysteries, now what? Unfortunately, then comes more confusion leading to ultimate disappointment. Ashley spends the rest of the movie killing men for no apparent reason. Ewan becomes obsessed with her--following her around, watching, listening, and even saving her life at one point.
It's never clear why anything is happening or how. There are crumbs of clues thrown randomly at us, but they are just not enough. And there are just so many gaping holes in the plot that listing is exhausting. There is no character development, no real explanation for why these two characters are wandering around in the same cinematic space, except a father and daughter cliché that explains nothing. At a stretch I could believe that in the eye of some beholders, the symbolism of this film may strike chords of surrealistic beauty. For most people, however, I think Eye of the Beholder will rank in the top ten list for worst movie of 2000--and it's only February!!!