Interview.

"Those who know that Steve Buscemi's new film, Interview is a remake of a 2003 film of the same name by Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was brutally murdered in 2004 by a militant Islamist for his outspoken condemnation of Muslim treatment of women, may be surprised by how commonplace the film is," writes Michael Koresky at indieWIRE. "A psychological pas de deux between a reporter and a starlet, Interview, transplanted to a cavernous downtown Manhattan loft, resembles nothing so much as a proficient, glib off-Broadway piece, purporting to examine preconceived notions about celebrity and journalism but more often interested in actorly histrionics."

Updated through 7/16.

"Intended as an examination of the combative dialogue between the media and celebrities, Interview is chiefly a showcase for actors Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller, as well as a case study in how to cinematically cope with stagy material," writes Nick Schager at Slant. "[T]he two lead performances [are] rock solid, and Buscemi's direction is consistently invigorating."

Earlier: Steve Appleford's talk with Buscemi for the LA CityBeat and "Sundance. Steve Buscemi x 2."

Updates, 7/11: "Star profiles are essentially hostage negotiations, a bartering of self-respect for access," writes Jim Ridley in the Voice. "How little can the subject reveal and still make the interviewer think he has a scoop? Buscemi and [screenwriter David] Schechter heighten this head game, making the Pierre-Katya "interview" a transaction in which each party means to screw the other, literally and figuratively. The characters' whip-smart monologues, accusatory and confessional, lash both ways: Are they lying to themselves or each other, or just to us?"

Buscemi's on ReelerTV.

Harlan Jacobson talks with Buscemi about Interview, but also more for Film Comment.

Aaron Hillis interviews Buscemi for IFC News, where Matt Singer writes, "The film places us in a room with two characters and their accumulated mishegas but it doesn't have enough intellectual curiosity about them to keep our attention."

Updates, 7/12: "It quickly becomes exhausting trying to figure out when Katya or Pierre is being sincere; they don't know themselves," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "This veneer of pseudo-adult psychological realism doesn't stop the film from being trashy, awkward and implausible, something like a stage play that might have seemed challenging in 1976. If Eugene O'Neill had tried to write a play about celebrity culture and the decline of journalism, this would be it."

Online listening tip. Buscemi and Miller are guests on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Updates, 7/13: "Vaporous and chilled to freezing, Interview lacks a single honest moment, but it does have plenty of diverting ones," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "[T]he movie is one of those chatty, catty, conceptual face-offs that are often best left to the stage and for which sports metaphors seem to have been invented. Two well-matched opponents enter, spar, punch, clinch, flail, break, draw blood (metaphoric, literal), block and knock down. Do they score? Yes and no."

"Buscemi and Miller nail their roles well enough, but the dynamic between them is never quite as sensational as the screenplay seems to think; much of the repartee is awkward and airless and the exchanges meant to shock (things get personal very quickly) don't make much of an impact," writes Michelle Orange at the Reeler. "Buscemi works to open up the space visually once inside Katya's spacious loft, where the bulk of the film occurs, but when you start noticing the blocking of the actors as blocking, something's not working."

"[I]f you can get past the total absence of handlers from the big star's life, there's enough peril and potential for betrayal involved in the situation to keep you interested," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "And Miller is quite good at playing the actress people underestimate at their own peril. Wonder why?"

"Interview reaffirms its indie film audience's superiority over a 'separate' realm of cultural activity," writes Michael Joshua Rowin for the L Magazine.

At the AV Club, Nathan Rabin finds it "mannered, implausible, and stagy, but queasily compelling all the same."

Buscemi picks his top ten Criterion discs.

Online listening tips. Hosoki Nobuhiro's got audio with Miller and Buscemi.

Update, 7/16: David Edelstein in New York: "I wonder if Sienna Miller came up short as Edie Sedgwick because, no matter how hard she tried (and how good she was), she couldn't be a blank, a non-actress. She's a stupendous actress."

Posted by dwhudson at July 10, 2007 6:24 AM