The Etruscan Smile
It’s great to see Brian Cox, the heartless mogul at the center of HBO’s Succession, cast as an average Joe who’s irascible but kind at heart. Even if his No. 1 goal in life is to outlive his lifelong sworn enemy, the head of a rival clan on their small island in the Scottish Hebrides.
Cox plays Rory MacNeil, an aging Scottish widower, who travels to San Francisco to seek medical care, necessitating a reunion with his estranged son Ian (JJ Feild), an aspiring chef. Ian is married to Emily (Thora Birch), a hospital administrator and the daughter of a Trump-like mogul named Frank (Treat Williams). Rory quickly bonds with Ian’s infant son Jamie, manages to woo a museum curator named Claudia (Rosanna Arquette), and assists an SFU professor (Peter Coyote) in a Gaelic language study — all while battling what turns out to be (surprise, surprise) a terminal illness.
So, there’s a lot going on in The Etruscan Smile, which takes its title and its plot outline from an acclaimed 1985 Spanish novel by José Luis Sampedro, which was set entirely in Italy. The movie, credited to five writers in addition to Sampedro, simply hasn’t time or talent enough to deal credibly with most of its subplots, so characters like Frank, Claudia, and the professor have to be taken at face value, without any attempt at development.
Oh, and did I mention that Rory’s physician is played by Tim Matheson? The Israeli co-directors, Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis (a husband and wife team whose 2015 short film "Aya" was nominated for an Oscar), take full advantage of their star-studded cast, allowing the combination of familiarity and acting chops to serve as shorthand when the rote screenplay can’t quite capture a scene or a character.
That’s especially true of Cox, who brings Rory fully to life and thereby enlivens the movie around him. The clichéd gambit of the crusty old person softened by the innocence of a child is the crux of The Etruscan Smile, and Cox sells it joyfully in every scene with the infant. His battle with his son is more amorphous, complicated by Ian’s apparent lack of common sense and by Feild’s inability to find his inner Cox, making Ian seem simply weak and self-absorbed.
No matter, there are many, many predictable plot points to hit, so The Etruscan Smile has no time to dwell on its weaknesses. It does briefly explain its oddball title, which turns out to be a metaphor about embracing mortality that’s much too on-the-nose to inspire more than an eye roll.
There’s a reason this movie was filmed in 2017 and only began to reach most audiences in 2019, once Succession had lifted Cox’s worldwide profile considerably. Fans of the actor will enjoy him here, and the surrounding brigade of once-more-famous stars makes for a kind of comfort viewing for those who remember, say, the man with the jingling keys in E.T. or that other girl in Desperately Seeking Susan or the noble cop in Prince of the City or Otter from Animal House. And if you spend the whole film thinking that American actor JJ Feild is actually English actor Tom Hiddleston, well, Google suggests you’re far from alone.
Grade: C-plus. Rated R. Available April 24 from the Sofa Cinema streaming program of Grail Moviehouse.
(Photo courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment)
