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I am told that the book Eye of the Beholder (by Marc Behm)
is an intense psychological thriller with all sorts of undertones
about a father who has lost his daughter and a duaghter who
has lost her father. I found nothing intense or psychological
about this film adaptation, only a confusing and boring plot
that made little sense.
Ewan McGregor plays an introverted investigator type who works
for some weird agency (where his movements are monitored by
a headset wearing k.d. lang). Ewan is accompanied on his stake
outs by his young daughter but gradually her bizarre comings
and goings are explained by the fact that he has not actually
seen her for years and she is only with him in his imagination.
Somehow, he ends up trailing Joanna (Ashley Judd) a black widow
woman who ends up violently despatching men who come to close
to her. Reasonably enough, this antisocial behaviour is due
to the fact that her father vanished from her life when she
was young. If all this isn't bizarre enough, the private investigator
develops an inexplicable attraction to her and starts to follow
her all over the place and even defends her from the deadly
intentions of a wild eyed drug addict (Jason Priestley).
I found this whole movie to be strange and confusing and more
often than not I had no idea what was going on. Not having read
the book, I am not sure whether this is a faithful adaptation
or not but I know that this movie did not work at all for me.
The actors do a reasonable enough job but they seem to struggle
with characters whose motivations seem far too improbable.
This movie just seems to go nowhere, and after all that, even
the ending is disappointing. Quite simply, the least enjoyable
film of the year so far.
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