Leo
9-26-04: Walmart carries a barebones dvd which contains only the movie. There is a widescreen dvd that has behind the scenes extras and some cast interviews. Can probably find that one online or at a dvd store such as Suncoast.
6-14-04: It is out on video now. You might want to rent it before purchasing as Jake's role is very, very small and in the beginning of the movie.
3-27-04: Caught a blurb in the Hollywood Reporter to the effect that this movie will be released on home video in May 2004.
10-10-02: This was "Leopold Bloom". Quote from a review done
for the Toronto International Film Festival where the movie premiered 9-11-02.
"Set in the deep south, a place where elegant mansions mix with out-of-the-way
motels, Leo mines two very different worlds to create an emotional tale of
a young man confronting the past that has made him who he is. Mehdi Norowzian
has enlisted the talents of a fine group of actors, including Joseph Fiennes, Elisabeth
Shue, Sam Shepard, Dennis Hopper and Deborah Kara Unger, to tell this mesmerizing story.
Stephen (Joseph Fiennes) upright, stern and serious is released after serving
a 15-year sentence for murder and is hired by the no-nonsense owner of a cheap
diner. Stephen calmly stares down the prying looks that come his way when his
silence betrays the existence of secrets he is unwilling to share. Remote and distant,
he starts to write down his thoughts, forming a narrative that may or may not be fictional.
Stephens story begins to overlap with that of a young, well-do-to,
middle-class couple. Ben (Jake Weber) is a professor at the local college while
his attractive wife, Mary (Shue), has given up trying to finish her Ph.D. to care
for their daughter. One day, gossiping friends lead Mary to suspect that her husband
is having an affair with one of his students. A local man painting their nursery at the
time provides her with an easy emotional out. What ensues scars all of their lives forever.
Moving seamlessly between the two realities of Leo, we are introduced to a set
of characters deeply damaged by their pasts. Just like Stephen, Mary has secrets that she
is reluctant to share. As Stephen forges a new life, in which his writing starts to occupy
a surprising centre, Mary realizes that she too must come to grips with her history.
Filming with dreamy languor, Norowzian evokes an imaginary world that resonates
in unsuspected ways. This complex puzzle of a film slowly reveals its own secrets.
Norowzians finely structured film walks a tightrope of suspense and characterization
with tremendous poise.
- Steve Gravestock "
I figured that's who Jake's character was - the husband of Shue's character.
11-22-02: From Variety, 11-19--02 by Todd McCarthy:
Do not read this if you don't like major spoilers:
S
P
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"Having abandoned her own academic ambitions to raise her 2-year-old daughter,
the rather idle and frustrated woman decides to believe some malicious gossip
about her professor husband, Ben (Jake Weber), fooling around with a co-ed
and has revenge sex with a lowlife house painter.
After having established that his wife bought into a lie, Ben is killed, along with the little girl, in a traffic accident at the 35-minute mark, leaving Mary pregnant,
alone and disconsolate. In due course she has a boy, whom she names Leopold (Bloom) for the unelaborated reason that "he's a man in a book I read a long time ago."
Well, can we all say - major bummer?
1-7-03: Link to a trailer of movie.