‘Charlie’s’ angle: Too smart for its own good

The truth about “The Truth About Charlie” is that it is easier to sympathize with the reasons director Jonathan Demme decided to make it than to actually enjoy the film that resulted.

After a series of features (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia,” “Beloved”) that were everything but lighthearted, Demme was clearly ready for something different.

A fan of Stanley Donen’s slick, Paris-based, 1963 romantic thriller “Charade” as well as of the French New Wave filmmakers who were working in the city then, Demme decided to restore himself by remaking the former in the style of the latter.

Why not hang out in Paris, the most pleasant of cities, and, while you’re at it, why not put in all kinds of film-buff references, like naming a hotel after Cinematheque Francaise founder Henri Langlois, convincing New Wave veterans Agnes Varda and Anna Karina to make cameos, even inducing the iconic Charles Aznavour to sing his own songs. And why not turn the whole thing into a valentine for “Beloved” co-star Thandie Newton, a beautiful actress Demme clearly has a talent crush on. Even serious directors deserve to have some fun.

Unhappily, although Demme likely did have fun, too little of that carries over to the audience side of the ledger. “The Truth About Charlie” is excessively clever and minimally charming, so eager to demonstrate its undeniable cinematic skills that it ends up outsmarting itself, showing off for its own pleasure when it should be trying to satisfy the rest of us.

“Charlie” relies overly much on razzle-dazzle not just because it doesn’t have “Charade’s” Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant to fall back on. It’s also because this kind of playful trifle is much harder to execute successfully than it may appear. Despite using four screenwriters (Demme, Steve Schmidt, “Charade” writer Peter Stone using the pseudonym Peter Joshua and Jessica Bendinger), “Charlie” has the kinds of problems with tone and likability that did not plague the original.

Newton plays Regina Lambert, returning to Paris after a Martinique vacation. She’s determined to leave the rakish Charles Lambert (Stephen Dillane), her husband of but three months. Divorce, however, proves not to be an option, as Charles has had the misfortune to be murdered on a train.

Even for a bride of three months, Regina turns out to know surprisingly little about the deceased. She thinks Charles is a Swiss art dealer, but when the French police show her a “Bourne Identity” variety of passports belonging to him, she’s completely at a loss.

Throwing her even more is that a sinister trio begins following her around Paris, apparently seeking the millions that the French police inform her vanished into the air when her husband was killed. “I do seem to be caught in a terrible mess,” Regina says at one point, underlining the obvious.

Because she’s lost, beautiful and the possible key to a whole lot of money, two men offer their assistance. Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg in the Grant role) is so omnipresent and so cheerfully helpful that it will be a given to everyone but Regina that he’s not what he seems. More buttoned-down is Mr. Bartholomew (Tim Robbins channeling the original’s Walter Matthau), a U.S. Embassy operative who places a premium on secrecy.

Newton, in the part “Charlie” is built around, acquits herself reasonably well as the attractive epitome of “decency, dignity and gumption,” but her classy appeal is not strong enough for a film with the kind of excessive plot shenanigans this one prides itself on.

Inevitably serving as “Charlie’s” main point of interest is the dazzling camera work, hand-held in the best New Wave tradition, by Demme’s longtime cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. Fujimoto is a master at creating stylish visuals and his views of off-the-beaten-track Paris are arresting, but this, too, is not enough.

For the reality is that “Charlie’s” flashy look and unconvincingly glib attitude eventually turns into as much of an irritant as an attraction, prejudicing us against a project we should be loving if only for its wonderfully eclectic soundtrack, featuring artists from Malcolm McLaren and Cornershop to Angelique Kidjo and Manu Chao.

Neither the script nor the direction nor the acting has been able to make these characters into ones we want to invest ourselves in. “The Truth About Charlie” is one very busy film, but it’s really not going anywhere.

*

‘The Truth About Charlie’

MPAA rating: PG-13, for some violence and sexual content/nudity

Times guideline: More stylized than explicit

Mark Wahlberg ... Joshua Peters

Thandie Newton ... Regina Lambert

Tim Robbins ... Mr. Bartholomew

Joong-Hoon Park ... Il-Sang Lee

Ted Levine ... Emil Zatapec

Lisa Gay Hamilton ... Lola Jansco

Universal Pictures presents in association with Mediastream Film, A Clinica Estetico production, Released by Universal Pictures. Director Jonathan Demme. Producers Jonathan Demme, Peter Saraf, Edward Saxon. Executive producer Ilona Herzberg. Screenplay Jonathan Demme & Steve Schmidt and Peter Joshua and Jessica Bendinger, based on the motion picture “Charade,” screenplay by Peter Stone. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. Editor Carol Littleton. Costumes Catherine Leterrier. Music Rachel Portman. Production design Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski. Art directors Ford Wheeler, Delphine Mabed. Set decorator Aline Bonetto. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes. In general release.