Review of The Reckless Moment (1949) by Jason R — 16 Jun 2009

I don't think this material is perfectly suited for Ophuls, and I wonder how much the studio tried to match him with a story in the mold of his earlier work. That being said, Ophuls does a bang up job twisting this piece of pulp into something pretty wonderful. Bennett isn't exactly thrilling in the lead, but acting in an Ophuls film often just means watching the camera glide past you on its way to other destinations, in which case Bennett works as well as anyone. She has her moments, though, like the pivotal scene when she confesses to James Mason's Irish gangster that being a suburban mother is a lonely, suffocating existence. If Sam Mendes wanted to know how to get the American suburbs right, he should have spent more time watching this film. Ophuls understands in a way that Mendes clearly doesn't why the suburbs can be like a prison: on the one hand, Bennett's character loves her children fiercely and goes to great lengths to protect them; on the other hand, her entire life--down to the millisecond--is totally predicated on managing her family. Ophuls does an admirable job capturing this push-and-pull, and Bennett becomes a powerfully sympathetic figure as a result.

Mason also does fine work, here, and the element of class resentment that gets explored through his character works, even though Mason isn't exactly very believable as a low rent hood. Oddly, Mason seems to have played average Joes quite a bit. Why did Hollywood take one of its most glamorous and handsome leading men and put him in a bunch of ho-hum parts? (In Ophuls's "Caught," for instance, he plays an East Side doctor whose practice borders on charity and winds up marrying Barbara Bel Geddes. Babs was a lovely woman, I'm sure, but she's no Grace Kelly.).

The film is also compelling, of course, as an exercise in style. Ophuls gently nudges classical style, elongating takes and using sweeping tracks more than the average Hollywood film, and certainly more than the average noirish B-film. Despite the (mild) constraints of working within Hollywood's continuity system, this film is basically just as gorgeous as "Le plaisir," and the influence of the American crime film on the lighting brings a new dimension to Ophuls's aesthetic.