David Mamet, director of “State and Main”, shows his playful side in his latest movie; a comedy about a film crew that invades a small and unsophisticated New England town.
Scandal and corruption pushes the big-budget film company out of its original shooting location in New Hampshire to Waterford, Va. The town seems like the perfect replacement setting for the movie. Waterford is a quaint town and it even has its own old mill, or so they thought.
The director Walt Price (William H. Macy) is in a tizzy because his film has lost money from the location change. Price then is temporarily frustrated because the new town does not have the much-needed old mill that the movie desperately needs.
The up-and-coming screenwriter, Joe White (Philip Seymour Hoffman), now has the daunting task of rewriting the film’s story line and title, which is called “The Old Mill”. Considering the movie’s entire plot is centered around an old mill, the feat proves challenging to White.
While on the verge of a nervous breakdown and in search of a replacement for his highly emotionally-valued manual typewriter lost en route to Vermont, White finds love and writing suggestions from Waterford’s bookstore manager and community theater director Ann Black (Rebecca Pidgeon).
Production continues to have problems when the film’s stars Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) and Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker) arrive to town. Barrenger develops a lustful taste for a local teenage schoolgirl Carla Taylor (Julia Stiles), and Wellesley suddenly gets bashful and is unwilling to perform her previously agreed nude scene.
Waterford’s townspeople have mixed feelings about the intrusion of the film crew’s movie production. Some consider the crew as heaven-sent, while others believe they are the embodiment of the devil itself.
Macy does an excellent job portraying the smooth talking movie director in “State and Main.” His tendency to tell little lies to get things done can easily be summed up by his character’s saying: “It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.”
Hoffman and Pidgeon playing-off each other’s characters vulnerability gave “State and Main” its most funniest moments. Pidgeon’s depiction of the straight forward bookstore manager is the perfect yin to the yang of Hoffman’s character’s easy excitability.
Balwin was eerily believable has the underage-sex crazed actor while Parker played the spoiled actress marvelously.
Mamet’s clever and lighthearted dialogue gives “State and Main” its hilarious comedic flare. The movie pokes fun at “small-town” America, but also shows the insecurities of the visiting “city-folk”.
The superb cast’s chemistry was magical and in turn the cast produces a great ensemble-focused movie.
The quirky “State and Main” is definitely a great film for moviegoers to view while it is still at theaters.
