Passion of Mind (2000) Reviews

• The Double Life of Demi

  moonspinner552001-08-15

  Surprisingly absorbing film that requires your patience (to let it unfold) and your attention (to capture all the nuances, and they are there). Demi Moore (looking angular and pale like Courteney Cox-Arquette, yet more flexible) is very fine as a woman living parallel lives, one of which is a dream-world. She's a widowed book reviewer in France with two kids and also a literary businesswoman in New York City. Complicating matters are two separate lovers (and shrinks!) who all say that the OTHER life she's having is a dream. Plot is laid out in elementary terms (with some nice surreal edges there at the finale) and I found it a pleasant, intriguing bit of fantasy, quite romantic in its melodrama. And for the poster who hated this on both plane flights he saw it on, heads up: most films look bad on planes. *** from ****

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• Misguided presentation of an interesting psychodrama

  FlickJunkie-22000-09-29

  How much one enjoys this film depends greatly on how much of Demi Moore you can stand. If you like long drawn out schmaltzy romances with Demi as the romantic heroine, you will love this film times two. Otherwise, hide any weapons lest you begin attacking your screen. This film was toasted by the critics, but I didn't think it was that bad. In fact, I liked it. I guess I fall more into the first (sucker for schmaltz) category. The story was criticized as being a contrived version of `Me, Myself and I', where a woman is torn over the choice between life as a professional and the family shtick. That criticism really misses the point. This is a story about a woman's psychological attempt to deal with her traumatic past and has nothing whatever to do with lifestyle choices. I found this to be an intelligent and complex character study of a woman who seems to be two people living two lives, but really isn't. If that seems cryptic, see the film and it might become clearer. When she goes to sleep from her life with her children in France, she wakes up to her high-powered career in New York and vice versa. She can't determine which is real and which is a fantasy. She has a lover in each life and both seem very real to her. As the story unfolds, she and we try to figure out which is her real life and which is the dream. The trouble with the presentation is that its real intrigue lies with the psychodrama. Unfortunately, neophyte director Alain Berliner pushed that element to the background and cranked up the schmaltz machine, centering the story on the romances instead. That wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't so interminable. Scene after scene retraced the same romantic theme, until it became frayed. Other than the misplaced emphasis, the film was well crafted. There were subtle hints throughout about which was the real life, but they were far from obvious tip-offs. However, when we finally discover the truth, it takes forever to wrap up the loose ends. To Berliner's credit, the locations were breathtaking, in both France and New York. It is easy to find beauty in the French countryside, but these were some of the most wonderful film perspectives I have ever seen of New York's skyline and street vistas. After enjoying a few years as one of the highest paid entertainers on the planet, Demi Moore disappeared for three years. This was probably not the best vehicle for her return. Her performance was strongly emotional but one-dimensional, failing to differentiate the characters sufficiently. She played the high-powered NYC girl to be just as wimpy as the insecure girl in France. To be fair however, she created two very appealing and vulnerable romantic characters and deserved better notices than she received. William Fichtner was not the greatest choice for her NY love interest. Fichtner is better at abrasive antagonist roles and his attempts at sensitivity came across as far too pathetic. Stellan Skarsgard was much better and made a dashing and attractive romantic figure. This was a good story that took a sentimental detour under the guidance of an inexperienced director. Still, it was engrossing and even touching at times. I rated it a 7/10. Add a point if you like sentimental pieces and subtract at least two if you aren't a Demi Moore fan.

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• *** Truly original drama

  Bil-32001-05-22

  Demi Moore is excellent in this intelligent drama about a widow living with her children in France who keeps going to sleep and waking up as a single career woman in New York. The double life is so effectively convincing that she can't tell which of the lives is real and which is the dream. On top of this, she has romantic interests in both lives, a controlling and passionate writer in France (Stellan Skarsgard), and a giving and kind man in New York (William Fichtner, his best performance yet). Moore's fascinating screen presence keeps this movie going even when it sags terribly in the middle, and Ronald Bass' script makes such a compelling argument for both of her lives that it's very difficult to guess for yourself what the outcome will be. The film's conclusion is so well played out and rewarding that it renders any previous flaws completely void. Also features a rich performance by Sinead Cusack.

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• Novel premise, well-done, kept us trying to figure it out until the very end.

  TxMike2002-03-01

  SPOILERS - This is a Demi Moore film with a fine supporting cast. Her dilema is this, she has two very real existences, one in New York as a high-powered professional, the other in France as a widow with two children. However, one of them is a dream and she doesn't know which. Neither do we. When she sleeps in one existence, she is awake in the other. In both she has a psychiatrist who assures her the "other" existence is a dream, and in each she has a new beau who is falling in love with her. In the end we find that the French existence is really a dream, taking her back to her childhood there. She had never reconciled the premature death of her mother, and in her dream she became the mother, the two children were her at different ages. A fine, entertaining, thought-provoking film. Most of the critics, like Ebert, got this one wrong. It is better than they said it was, probably because they decided early into the film that it wasn't good.

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• For those you like to remember

  berghella2005-05-28

  For those of us who like to remember loved ones, who believe movies can and must be more than just a laid back entertaining experience, but a voyage through our own feelings, imagination and the past images, people and moments gone by that make us who we are today, I would recommend this apparent portray of a woman's insanity between two lives that are, in reality, directly linked to explain who she really is. Yes the movie is sometimes difficult to follow for rational minds, but the final moments bring it all together. You may not like it from a rational standpoint, but from an emotional one, if you have found in a stituation someday where you've had to relive, accept and say goodbye to your past in order to really appreciate your present, then emotionally, you will understand and appreciate it. Demi Moore delivers a subtle and wonderful performance. I miss her. I wish someone would tell her (or Hollywood) that an actress should not be judged on the regularity of big movies she cashes in for them but on the quality of the movies and messages her projects deliver. Thanks for making me remember my mom again ;)

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