Guy de Fraumeni's Hollywod In The Hamptons

The Hoax & Perfect Stranger

I am lost in a quandary. If you're wondering how deep and dark, or where a quandary is, it's defined as "a state of perplexity." (Maybe sandwiched between the states of Utah and Wyoming). I am totally confused as to which is the bigger hoax. Is it the actual million-dollar literary scam of the bogus Howard Hughes autobiography that startled the Watergate era nation and now a motion picture titled The Hoax or is it the current thriller, Perfect Stranger? It is loaded with more phony business than is imaginable - like stars Halle Berry and Bruce Willis.

This is a test. Who got a million dollar advance from McGraw Hill publishers for a Howard Hughes autobiography as overseen, edited and delivered by him on the basis of a handwritten proposal by Hughes? Give up? Why, it was a quite unremarkable writer, Clifford Irving, known, if at all, at the time for a tacky book about an art forger who really wasn't much of an artist. They both lived in Ibiza, the forger for legal immunity. The film does not contain that. It has Irving living in upstate New York. The list of the movie's own fabrications is as long as my arm, but also lengthy enough to be out of reach of the long arm of the law. I can't imagine why writer William Wheeler and director Lasse Hallstrom felt the need to hoax-up an already rather unbelievable, "true" story. Hallstrom's last few movies have been as slow and dense as molasses. Perhaps for The Hoax he wants to push gee-whiz scenes to the max. No need. The cast is terrific and easily matches the gee-whiz elements of the true story.

Clifford Irving found himself up a fruitless tree 35 years ago when his "big hope" novel was killed by the publisher and his advance replaced by a scuba vacation, a Mercedes and an extramarital sidebar. Then, he sees a Newsweek story on Hughes that includes a sample of his handwriting. A flickering bright idea will include his researcher and collaborator, Dick Susskind. Together, they forge the proposal, with no worries about Hughes the hermit. Then there's the hustler, good ol' Cliff, who could probably sell shares of Enron today. There's also an older, heftier Richard Gere, with dark slippery hair and a fake nose, who is marvelous as Irving. The publishers wanted to believe this multimillion-dollar bonanza. For all, it was a dream come true. For the reviewer, the cast is dreamy. Molina's Suskind is heart breakingly clumsy and true and Gere is wonderfully fake.

The Hoax stretches to include "tricky" situations between Hughes and Richard M. Nixon. The pervasive disease of the big lie spreads, uncontained, wherever we choose to look. Some scams, like weapons of mass destruction, are so big we have to look the other way. Not so with Mr. Hughes, who angrily snapped to public life and called Irving's bluff. It sent the wily writer away for two years with his scuba gear, no doubt.

Another puzzling question is why the heck Halle Berry took on the role of a squawking, snarling investigative reporter whose sensational exposes reveal moral lapses as gaping as those of the rag she works for. Maybe her agent placed her in Perfect Stranger as another product to be plugged alongside Reebok, Heineken, computers or inside Victoria's Secret bras (actually written into the script) as an ad campaign for the agency headed by advertising giant, Hill, played by Willis, is targeted by Ms. Berry's Rowena's complex, prying nosiness that sneezes over a broad area spreading like a cold germ. It contages into Washington's dank basements of scandals and the loyal lieutenants who throw their bodies onto the virus infections to cover it up. But it only takes one gay congressman to display the movies dedication to unmitigated sleaze. Even as Rowena adopts two personas to solve the murder of her girlfriend and prove womanizing Hill is the culprit, she creeps into a bevy of suspects so shady that Hill becomes sympathetic. His powerful position demands loyalty. Giovanni Ribisi is also loyal to Rowena. He's her cyberhacking sidekick who will wait close by as she makes love to her boyfriend. Adding more sex, Hill prys Rowena's office temp with the "Hemingway Daiquiri" and Rowena's chat room person with risque questions about intimate lingerie in response to her lusty, typed prodding. So, he's a murderer? And who is she? And, oh, hooray! You'll be jerked around in your seat. Twist! Turn! Ambiguity!

Guy-Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmys and various film festivals. Sarah Halsey assists him.