Mona Lisa (1986, Dir. Neil Jordan)
Synopsis:
Newly released from prison, George (Bob Hoskins) returns to find his wife wants nothing to do with him and doesn’t want him to have any contact with his now teenage daughter. Only his old friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) is pleased to see him. Needing a job, George goes to see crime boss Mortwell (Michael Caine) who he’d worked for before being arrested. He’s given the job of driving and looking after high class prostitute, Simone, (Cathy Tyson), and although at first the two dislike each other, they form a bond. Eventually, Simone asks George for help finding Cathy (Kate Hardie), a younger prostitute see used to know and it’s now worried about. However George soon comes to realize helping Simone will put them both in considerable danger from Mortwell and his associates.
I’ve mentioned several times over the course of this blog’s existence, that “underrated-ness” comes in more than one form. There’s the obvious cases of films which fail to find their audience upon initial release and then steadily grow in reputation over the years, which is often the case of cult films. Others are “underrated” simply because they haven’t been seen by many people, either because they were given a limited cinema release or because they’ve never been available on DVD or Blu-Ray until recently. Sometimes it’s simply because many English-centric mainstream filmgoers are unaware or uninterested in films from other countries. Perhaps the most interesting of the types of “underrated” film are those movies that garnered positive reviews and critical acclaim at the time of release but since then have been forgotten about. In some cases a film can be nominated for or win Oscars and then 20 years later nobody really remembers it (Ordinary People anyone?).
Such is the case with this superb film (which in-keeping with this blog’s tradition is sort of a love story for Valentines Day). Bob Hoskins won both a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for his performance here and was nominated for Best Actor, only to lose out to Paul Newman in The Color Of Money (another film that’s been forgotten about over the years since its release). Shot with considerable style by Neil Jordan (I’d argue that this is his best film, along with The Company Of Wolves), it manages to be an authentic British Noir/ Drama and yet never descends into parody like the films of Guy Ritchie have done.
In a way, it belongs to the sub genre of really brilliant but subversive British crime films such as Get Carter, Performance and Hoskins’ breakout film: The Long Good Friday. All of which use the criminal underworld as a backdrop to tell some very dark and often timeless stories: Get Carter could almost be a modern version of the Jacobean revenge tragedy and Long Good Friday has Shakespearean overtones in the way that it’s gangland boss’ empire is gradually torn apart by an enemy he can neither understand nor defeat. Here the story is almost an urban fairy tale: an unlikely knight in shining armor, trying to save a damsel in distress and having just come from his cinematic adaptation of Angela Carter’s feminist/revisionist takes on classic fairytales in Company Of Wolves, Jordan is astute enough to make sure that he references both the fairytale and the film noir influences, whilst simultaneously mocking them in a post modernist way, through the film’s look (the classic car that Hoskins drives, the film’s predominantly nocturnal setting) and elements such as Hoskins coyly talking through his predicament as if it’s a novel with his crime thriller writing friend, played by Robbie Coltrane; the white rabbit that villain Mortwell carries with him or the white horse that George sees tied up when he stops on the drive down to Brighton.
The film is also reminiscent of Taxi Driver, in its nighttime scenes, unflinching look at the world of prostitution and extreme violence at the end. Like Taxi Driver it’s the story of a violent man that tries to redeem himself for a woman he’s in love with, despite the fact that the love isn’t really requited. Unlike Travis Bickle, however, George keeps his humanity and, because of this, there is a sense that George has reached a turning point and that afterwards he, at least, can move on and find some happiness working in his friend’s garage and spending time with his teenage daughter.
It’s a film full of stunning performances, not only from Hoskins and Cathy Tyson as the two leads, but also the wonderful Robbie Coltrane and also Katie Hardie (who would later appear in another great dark British crime thriller, Croupier) and Sammi Davis (who would be seemingly ubiquitous in British films for the next few years after this, re-united with Hoskins in Prayer For The Dying as well as playing the part of the older sister in John Boorman’s superb semi-autobiographical Hope And Glory) as well as an early role for Clarke Peters, (who currently seems to be in virtually every U.S. and U.K. drama series) as the menacing pimp Anderson. However, the truly eye-opening performance comes from Michael Caine. As Mortwell, he gives us one of the most unrepentantly nasty characters of his entire career. He’s only in the film for about 20mins in total, yet his character’s presence hangs ominously over the entire story. The cinematography by acclaimed British cameraman, Roger Pratt (Brazil, Batman, 12 Monkeys and Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire) is superb, giving the movie a noir feel whilst never becoming a pastiche. Although it’s a surprisingly minimal score for him, Michael Kamen’s music is also very effective and clearly influenced by the superb work he’d done on the BBC TV series, Edge Of Darkness, the year before.
Watching the film today, is akin to looking at a time capsule: the London of the 80s, before the gentrification of its seedier areas began at the end of the 90s. For me though, the film’s final 20 minutes, set in my home town of Brighton is like traveling back into my childhood. The restaurant that George stops at with Cathy and collects Simone, is The Happy Eater restaurant that I and my cousins would always go to whenever they visited me in Brighton. The white horse that George spots is tethered to the Treehouse in the playground next to the car park, that I spent countless hours in as a child, in between my usual menu of a hamburger and chips followed by strawberry ice cream and raspberry sauce. Of course, such reminiscences mean nothing to all of you, but for me it’s yet another reason why this film is so important to me. It’s reminder of a place that now otherwise only exists in my memory.
If it’s been a while since you’ve seen the film, perhaps it’s time you re-acquainted yourself with a rare example of a British crime thriller that doesn’t try and imitate its American counterparts, and instead conjures up something truly original. If you haven’t seen the film before, then now’s the time to fall under its spell.
