State and Main (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon)
Yeah, I think David Mamet is my favourite playwright. The guy has an eerily accurate way of writing the way people talk, and his plays are as suspenseful as they are insightful. Works like Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna and Speed the Plow are powerful constructs of dialogue and precision. Mamet's venture into movies has been almost as successful. His screenplays for Wag the Dog, the Spanish Prisoner, the Winslow Boy and now State and Main catapult him into one of Hollywood's best and most prolific sources of quality scripts.
State and Main is far lighter than your usual Mamet fare -- for one thing, the language is cleaner. I was reminded of a mix between Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Robert Altman's The Player. The story takes place in the small locale of Waterford, Vermont. It is in this tiny town that a Hollywood production team has opted to shoot their story "The Old Mill". One small snag, of course, is that the town mill burned to the ground back in 1960. The solution? "Well first you've got to change the title," Ann Black (Rebecca Pidgeon) simply suggests to the scriptwriter Joe White (Philip Seymour Hoffman).
The movie has plenty of similar quips, as we follow the adventures of director Walt Price (the incomparable William H. Macy), his lead actors Claire and Bob (Sarah Jessica Parker as an actress who refuses to bare her breasts for the camera and Alec Baldwin as a filthy celebrity with a penchant for underaged teens), and producer Marty Rossen (the deadpan David Paymer), all desparately hoping to start filming before they're run out of yet another small town. The cast of locals includes Mayor George Bailey (a stuffed Charles Durning), his anxious wife Sherry (Patti Lupone), and the oh-so-blonde waitress Carla (Julia Stiles).
Several key relationships emerge, most notably between lonely screenwriter Joe and the temporarily engaged book store owner Ann. They are artsy fartsy (he types on a trusty typewriter, she directs the town play), and quickly find themselves falling in love with each other.
As entertainment, State and Main is whimsical but never tepid. In my esteem, Mamet should continue to fashion scripts for large casts in closed quarter settings. Rarely have smalltown shenanigans and Hollywood hijinks been so endearing.
