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Rick

2003, Movie, R, 92 mins

Rick: Review

RICK | RRRRRICK
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A deliciously bitter tale of lust and betrayal among dog-eat-dog Wall Street bigwigs, this grim fairy tale marks the feature-directing debut of veteran film editor Curtiss Clayton and was written by Daniel Handler several years before his transformation into children's publishing phenomenon Lemony Snicket. Steeped in a poisonous atmosphere of testosterone-fueled greed and vicious competitiveness, the film opens as middle-aged executive Rick O'Lette (Bill Pullman) turns a job interview into an exercise in humiliation. His victim, Michelle (Sandra Oh), has applied for an assistant position at Image Corporation, whose prominently displayed motto — "We Can Do This!" — gives no clue as to what, exactly, they do. But whatever it is, Michelle won't be doing it. Fueled by the ever-simmering fury of someone who spends his days sucking up to a sleazy hotshot young enough to be his son (Aaron Stanford), Rick mocks Michelle's ambitions, education, family background and interpersonal skills, then delivers the coup de grace. He knows she's all wrong for the job without even looking at her résumé, he says with an oily smile, because he's a people person. Rick wraps up the day by getting Michelle fired from the trendy Remote Lounge, where she works as a waitress, but this time she goes out with a flourish. "I curse you, Rick," Michelle hisses, each word etched in acid. "You're an evil person with an evil soul and it will come back to you." And it does. Within a matter of days, Rick is watching helplessly as his life slaloms into the abyss. He succumbs to the blandishments of a corporate hit man (Dylan Baker) who offers to kill Duke; learns that his beloved teenage daughter, Eve (Agnes Bruckner), has been conducting a sordid online correspondence with Duke through the XXX-rated NaughtyChat.com; and realizes that he scarcely recognizes the despicable tool he's become. Rick's decline and fall culminate at the Image Christmas party, a holly-jolly orgy of insincere corporate cheerleading, forced merriment and drunken despair. A tart bonbon in a shiny tinsel wrapper, Clayton's darkly stylish fable, driven by Pullman's no-holds-barred portrayal of Rick, unfurls to the bleak strains of Ted Reichman's lacerating variations on traditional Christmas tunes. If the plot sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Handler reconfigured Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto for the big business set, proving if nothing else that in matters of base human nature, little has changed since the 16th century. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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