"Drowning Mona," directed by Nick Gomez (TV's "The Sopranos"), may be the most disappointing film of the year, not because it's bad, but because it had the potential to be so good.
There has always been a dark side to the cinema, from the classic noir of the 1940s to the sordid indies of the 1970s. Most recently, this has led to a genre of movies that revel in human suffering and explore perverse worlds, finding humor in the wayward acts of the characters that exist there. Examples of this include "Reservoir Dogs," "Fargo" and Gomez's own debut "Laws of Gravity."
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However, Gomez's latest steers clear of that trend. Two minutes into "Mona," a Yugo careens off an embankment and into a river. The woman inside dies -- what an auspicious beginning! Immediately, hope surfaces that this film might perhaps be something to celebrate. But the movie plummets into the river of mediocrity at the velocity of a car with a severed brakeline.
The car in question belongs to Mona Dearly (Bette Midler). No wait ... that's not entirely true; the car really belongs to Mona's good-for-nothing son Jeff (Marcus Thomas), but Mona's the one inside it when it falls in the drink.
For those people who believe that "all life is precious," Mona Dearly exists as a counter-argument. Absolutely everyone in the town despises her, including her own family, and anyone who's ever met her has a motive to kill her. Once tests establish that someone has, in fact, tampered with the Yugo, every citizen of Verplanck, N.Y., becomes a suspect.
Jeff lost his hand in an freak accident that goes unexplained for the bulk of the movie. As a result, his increased inactivity has been sucking the lifeblood out of the landscaping business he shares with Bobby Calzone (Casey Affleck).
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Bobby can't allow this trend to continue if he wants to support his new wife, Ellen (Neve Cambell), and the family they want to have. One problem: Mona would never let Bobby get away with firing Jeff. Mona's dead now, problem solved.
When Mona discovered that her husband Phil (William Fichtner) had been sleeping around with Rona (Jamie Lee Curtis), the waitress at the local diner, he became a battered husband. Mona's dead, problem solved.
This is the story for every member of the Verplanck community: Mona's death solves everybody's problems. Every member of the community, that is, except one. Wyatt Rash (Danny De Vito), Verplanck's police chief. The fact that he's Ellen's father and Bobby is the chief suspect makes his situation especially sticky.
There's a special note of irony here for film fans. In "Ruthless People," DeVito's character wanted Midler, who played his wife, to die. Now, 14 years later, he's the only one who cares about her murder.
So, for an hour and a half, Wyatt interviews people and Mona Dearly's story unfolds through a series of flashbacks. The film shows us one encounter with Mona twice, once through Jeff's eyes, and then through Bobby's. The accounts are totally different, and the discrepancy is wonderful. Not only do both stories elicit laughs, but they perplex the viewer because we don't know which is the truth. "Mona" ends up ruining the mystery, though, by telling the viewer who to trust.
"Mona" also disappoints in a second crucial way; the film apparently gets bored with itself. The movie begins with a fresh pictorial style and the sardonic unfolding of a murder to the happiest of oldies. Then, it loses its edge, as if director of photography Bruce Douglas Johnson did not know what else to do. With a complex plot and characters like these, one would have to have worked to make a film this simple.
Screenwriter Peter Steinfeld's script is like the first draft to a great movie, and the final product is a monument to wasted opportunity. In combining the comic caper aspect of a whodunit with small-town caricatures, he forgets to make it coherent and engaging. Despite his past work and impressive cast, Gomez can't stop "Mona" from slowly relegating itself to a bland, crude and ultimately un-funny dark comedy.
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