On location at the Venice Film Festival, The Contending’s Frank J. Avella reviews opening night’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
The Biennale excitement began immediately with our arrival at Marco Polo Airport in Venice. At luggage retrieval, a nervous man scurried about holding a sign that read “Ms. Sofia Coppola.” He was still circling after we got our luggage, making me wonder if she had been on our plane. Also, why was she here? She had Priscilla in competition last year. Perhaps she just wanted to see a good film or three.
The water taxi driver must have misunderstood me because he took us directly to the Excelsier Hotel on Lido—fine location-wise since it’s minutes from where we are actually staying—but I had to do some fast talking when we did arrive, and they wanted to check us in.
FYI, the Excelsior is the most upscale hotel on Lido; it’s also the most expensive and exclusively reserved for celebrities and dignitaries during the fest. As much as I’m proud to write for The Contending, I am neither of those things.
FYI 2, the room at the B&B we are staying at, Hotel Villa Venice Movie, has a giant wall photo of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the head of the bed, which makes it our choice anyway! Let Sigourney Weaver (receiving a career award) wallow in luxury. We have Audrey!
My very first screening this morning was at a large venue called the Palabiennale (there are 12 theaters for the fest this year). I decided to arrive an hour early and ended up second in line basting in the sun. Within 20 minutes, tons of press and industry descended, and by the time they finally opened the doors for us (at 11:06 for an 11:15 screening) I realized things are probably done on Italian time here (basically late), but the film actually started exactly on time.
I swallowed hard since the movie was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the festival opener!
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Review
In a sequel-obsessed industry, it took 36 years for the dark horse comedy, Beetlejuice, which owes a lot of its massive popularity to VHS rentals (Google it) to receive a follow-up.
When one thinks of Beetlejuice, usually the first images and song that pop into one’s mind is a wacky dinner party scene where Catherine O’Hara possessed by the dead Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, begins singing Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O.” It turns at once super silly and infectious and perhaps, back then, a wee scary.
The rest of Beetlejuice, and I recently rewatched it in hopes that my assessment would alter, is an incomprehensible mess, albeit with good actors and a few fun moments (did I mention “Day-O?”)
But many people love it; it even became a Broadway show (nominated for a Best Musical Tony — in a very lean year)
The basic plot centers on the recently deceased Davis and Baldwin not being allowed to leave their Winter River, Connecticut home where the Deetz family has now moved in. So the Deetzs conjure up centuries-old Betelgeuse, an exorcist of sorts, to scare the family away.
Director Tim Burton has reunited many of the original cast members for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and the results are so far superior to the original, I was flabbergasted. Not since Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again has a sequel so far improved on the original. And, at least, I liked Mamma Mia!
The new film is darker, stranger, and it makes much more nonsensical sense than the original. It also focuses on three generations of women played by three terrific actors — making it infinitely more watchable.
The sequel’s plot, which one can at least follow, has the Deetz women returning to their Winter River home after a family tragedy. Lydia (two-time Oscar nominee Winona Ryder) now a famous ghost hunter, has her own teenage daughter, Astrid (Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega), who thinks her mom’s a charlatan. Matriarch Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is getting along better with her stepdaughter Lydia, but both are mourning the death of patriarch Charles (played by Jeffrey Jones in the original film, who has his own past crimes that probably prevented any possibility of his returning.)
When Astrid meets pretty boy Jeremy (House of the Dragons’ Arthur Conti), a lunatic sequence of events forces her into the afterlife, and Lydia is forced to bring back Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, more fabulously bizarre than ever).
Burton’s love of mixing genres and tones works really well here and allows Ryder, especially, to play up the poignancy. Lydia is still a lost soul trying to find herself. O’Hara is a treat balancing Delia’s selfish nature with actual caring. Ortega fits right into the familial dynamic and never relies on her Wednesday tricks. The great Monica Belucci appears in a role I don’t want to give away. I just wish she’d been given more to do. She has a magnificent first scene where she literally puts herself together. Then she just wanders around a lot. Menacingly.
The use of Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park” vocal is inspired and even better than “Day-O.”
Kudos to screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Wednesday) (from a story by Gough & Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith) for taking the original characters created by Michael McDowell and Larry Wilson and letting them soar (and Burton who inspired much improv onset).
When I first read that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was opening Venice 81, I wondered if the selection committee had too much canal water. I get it now. The film is a gem.
The Venice Film Festival runs August 28 through September 7.
