"The Majestic" (2001) - Movie Review

The term of “cheesy” scenes are prominent in movies. Basically my understanding goes in the sense wherein the emotions are over done to make it really sweet and explicitly try to make instant connection, but as the time progresses it is realized is all artificial. So does “The Majestic” have those cheesy scenes? The creators have used so much of those scenes previously in Hollywood productions which might get confused with the real emotions shown in this movie. The usage of dramatic emotions is right and in fact more than right, it seems perfect. When I say perfect, it is the perfection to make it sure that it is in a movie and still associates it with a smile on our face. It seems fantasy but real with respect to the events.

Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey) is a coming up writer who is waiting for his big break in to the A movies in Hollywood. His life is good with a nice actress as a girl friend and his write up very close to production. He has compromised a lot of his creations to achieve it. The first scene is amazing with respect to that. Everyone talk about the ending and decide it. Then they decide to ask the writer itself on it. Show business seems to be the same regardless of which era it is in. The film does not circle exactly on a year but it seems to happen around 1955 or so. Thunders fall on the dreams of Peter Appleton who is now being accused of being a communist. He gets summoned by the committee to explain himself. Depressed and distressed, and also drunk he gets into an accident. He gets washed away in to the shores of a beautiful but sullen town of Lawson. People are kind and are still grieving their loss of their sons in the war. How they greet Peter and how his life gets a totally different plane of existence is the rest of this likeable cute film.

There are clichés and there are sentiments. Director Frank Darabont has his way of providing those in a manner it does not seem to be thrusted upon. The emotions are calm and kind. It does not ride away totally into the melodramatic scenario nor does it contain itself to be a subtle experience. When the town is happy, we really feel the happiness. It is not cheap trick but really there is happiness. We know that everything is going to end happily and there will be a slight moderation near the end to bring everything onto clear. Still there is something mystical that the customary scenes are made to enjoy for what it is. Some where we realize this is how the scenes of “cheesiness” need to be handled to bring in the real thing out of it.

The film while bringing in the natural entertainment drama in it manages the enactment of a message too. It connects the romantic part of it but there is something to be learned upon. The revelation of a character and conviction emerging out of it nails the third act of the film. I am not exactly sure why this movie is set in the era of 1950’s. Maybe it is to bring in the situation of creativity getting hammered by the politics. Maybe it is also to provide those movie classics and remind us that those made the history of cinema. But I guess the town of Lawson is the main reason for it. While there may exist a small town like that but the acute emotions of losing their loved ones as a whole is something that era can only bring in. It is a town lost their future generation for a country. And Peter seems to lighten their hopes up for the time being to remind them that there is still life. That the souls lost remain depressed as the life they left for their loved ones is not being enjoyed. The film brings in those along with the medium of theatres which are diminishing very slowly. I am now able to get how much important Roger Ebert feels that the movies in his festival played upon in the Virginia Theatre, Champaign. It is congested but there is the history been attached to it for the people who watched and got inspired from the classics in those theatres.

Darabont manages to give something to everyone. A movie lover may admire the beauty of the classics and the theatre phenomenon. A war veteran and some one who lost their loved ones in war might associate their emotions with the town people. A relationship renewed for a one which remained hopeless which is in between Harry and his son Luke. This movie is not an epic or an extraordinary way of story telling. It is simply entertainment. An entertainment rightly termed as for movies. And this movie is in lot of way reminds the classic as well. Darabont pays homage to those classics through a different way of giving the used up emotions in a sweet way.