Cinema: Ho, Ho (Well, No)

(3 of 4)

Critics love films about simple folks dying in the snow (Fargo, The Sweet Hereafter, A Simple Plan). And they revere Nick Nolte, who has a lock on the role of the tough man--out of sorts, time and control--in a world with no use for his strengths. No surprise, then, that Affliction, Paul Schrader's film from a Russell Banks novel about family violence in New Hampshire, has placed strongly in the year-end critics' polls, and that Nolte won some Christmas laurels as best actor.

Wade Whitehouse (Nolte) is a part-time cop and a full-time burnout. His wife has left him; his daughter squirms as he tries charming her; his sadistic father (James Coburn) poisons Wade's prospects. His educated brother (Willem Dafoe) is too far away. His girlfriend (Sissy Spacek) can't soothe his dark side. His best pal may have killed a rich man for hire. And Wade has this awful toothache!

As screenwriter (Taxi Driver) and director (Patty Hearst), Schrader specializes in people spiraling into madness; for him it is their purest, most photogenic state. Affliction dawdles over small-town life: lots of boozy bonhomie and dazed snarling. The raging losers here often seem like sullen stereotypes. We could also have done without Nolte's self-crucifixion scene. But the actor finds truth in Wade's emotional clumsiness, in the despair of a man who hasn't the tools or the cool to survive. There are too many of these men in life, and not enough films that tell their sad tales. That gives Affliction a therapeutic worth. --R.C.

MIGHTY JOE YOUNG STARRING: Charlize Theron, Bill Paxton, David Paymer OPENS WIDE: Dec. 25

When Willis O'Brien, the pioneering special-effects genius, went back to his drawing board in the 1940s, he gave Mighty Joe Young two things King Kong, his first and greatest ape, lacked: a user-friendly name and a lady friend who didn't burst into screams every time she caught sight of him. The result didn't quite match King Kong, arguably the movies' most intense portrayal of unrequited love, but it remains a sweet memory, now happily recalled by director Ron Underwood's genial remake.

To put it simply, a big guy--even if he is just a gorilla with a pituitary problem--who has a playful sense of his own strength and deploys it only in good causes is an irresistible figure. Also, these days, an instructive one. Fifty years ago, there wasn't much you could do with Mighty Joe except display him exploitatively in a nightclub. Now he can be played as a lovable symbol for all our endangered species.

Underwood has a nice, humorous regard for the fact that Joe tends to make a scary first impression even on sympathetic souls, and the director is blessed with inviting performances by Charlize Theron as Jill Young, the light of Joe's life, and Bill Paxton as Joe's rival for her affection. Maybe the update on the old script strains a bit over the implacability and resources of Joe's enemies, but his daring, concluding rescue of an imperiled child--this time the setting is an exploding amusement park, not a flaming orphanage--effectively stirs both suspense and sentiment. This Christmas you could do worse than introduce the kids to the big Furby, one who carries a certain moral weight very lightly. --R.S.

PATCH ADAMS STARRING: Robin Williams, Monica Potter OPENS WIDE: Dec. 25