‘Beholder’: Little More Than Meets the Eye

Mr. Adams, my old elementary school principal, frowned on negativity. “Try to find something good to say about everyone,” he told us one day in assembly. “If you see a dead dog lying in a ditch, say something nice, even if it’s only that it has nice, white teeth.”

It is “Eye of the Beholder,” the new Ashley Judd movie, that brings Mr. Adams’ teachings to mind. Having seen it, I am pleased to report that not only are Judd’s teeth white, but that her co-star Ewan McGregor’s are as well. Their teeth are so white and they both are so attractive and talented that I predict many fine movies lie in their future.

Furthermore, let me hasten to add that “Eye” isn’t the abomination you might expect, considering the way its distributors kept it under wraps, slipping it into theaters with only one last-minute screening for reviewers. It isn’t well-made by any means (sorry, Mr. Adams), but nobody has anything to be ashamed of here. It isn’t insultingly bad; it’s just incompetent.

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The central conceit is an interesting one: McGregor plays a surveillance expert so disengaged from life that he is hardly a physical entity anymore, a professional voyeur hiding behind a wall of gadgetry. We never even learn his name. Someone calls him “Lucky Legs” at one point; the production notes identify him simply as Eye.

He has suffered an unbearable loss. But he is pulled back into the world when he becomes obsessed with a serial killer (Judd) whom he’d been assigned to spy on. She, too, has a void in her soul. He senses a connection.

Eye follows her bloody trail across the country, listening to her conversations, spying on her in her bedroom, watching her kill. He protects her from harm and from capture by the police, biding his time until he can make his presence known.

Adapted from a novel by Marc Behm, “Eye of the Beholder” is a psychological thriller, or at least it should be. As so often happens, the filmmakers are more interested in thrills than psychology, in sensation over credibility and depth.

And so, to make us empathize with Judd’s identity-shifting killer, we’re given a couple of ridiculously pat rationales for her turning out bad. And when Eye reenters the physical world, creeping awkwardly out of his high-tech cocoon, this disembodied geek becomes suddenly quite handy with guns and with his fists.

Writer-director Stephan Elliott, best known for the comedy “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” also employs several dubious narrative devices. In one case, he turns a character from Eye’s past, basically a figment of his imagination, into a physical presence who talks to him and moves in and out of scenes. It’s intriguing at first, in a “Sixth Sense” sort of way, until we figure out what’s going on. Then it becomes annoying.

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But before too long, Elliott abruptly and clumsily drops the gambit, which merely underscores how contrived and unnecessary it was to begin with.

Perhaps because he doesn’t care to spend time creating credible characters and developing his themes through their interactions (that’s called drama in some circles), Elliott compensates by being literal and heavy-handed.

An example: He wants us to know that the Eye has become a guardian angel to the character Judd plays, so Elliott plants angel statuary and the word “angel” all over the place. Then, in case we still don’t get it, he has Judd spell it out in dialogue.

He also likes to use songs to tell the audience what to think. Several times he sticks a pop song on the soundtrack to tell us exactly what the scene playing out on screen has just shown us.

And then there’s the way Elliott continually undercuts the themes he ostensibly wants to express: McGregor’s character has lost a daughter, Judd’s has lost a father. This is the tie that binds them. This may be the one Hollywood movie in which the male lead really ought to be old enough to be the female lead’s father.

Oh, but you say that might’ve skewed the movie toward a different demographic. Silly me. I thought there was a point to making movies beyond marketing.

Be that as it may, though, there’s no doubt about it: Everyone involved has sure got white teeth.

* MPAA rating: R, for some strong violence, sexuality, language and brief drug content. Times guidelines: There is one not-too-graphic sex scene, but the violence includes brutal beatings and a bloody knifing.

‘Eye of the Beholder’

Ewan McGregor: Eye

Ashley Judd: Joanna

Patrick Bergin: Alex

Genevieve Bujold: Dr. Brault

k.d. lang: Hilary

Jason Priestley: Gary

A Destination Films and Behaviour Worldwide presentation in association with Village Roadshow-Ambridge Film Partnership of a hit & run / Filmline International production. Director and screenplay Stephan Elliott. Producers Nicolas Clermont and Tony Smith. Executive producers Hilary Shor and Mark Damon. Cinematographer Guy Dufaux. Production designer Jean-Baptiste Tard. Editor Sue Blainey. Music Marius De Vries. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

In general release.