Have you ever looked at your life and decided that it wasn’t what you wanted? Like waking up from a dream, it seems like a perfectly fine life with no reason to feel empty, yet you do? Well that’s pretty much what Timothy Hutton’s Gabriel is going through in the new film, “Multiple Sarcasm.” The actor plays a married man, with a daughter living in New York who is seemingly happy but one day realizes that it’s just not enough. He decides to write a play, which eventually leads to his life falling apart, before comes back together. Hutton is good in the role as is Dana Delany who plays his wife. However it’s Oscar winner Mira Sorvino’s role as his platonic best friend that steals the film with creative and funny performance.
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The film begins by introducing us to Gabriel (Hutton) who is going through a mid-life crisis. The movie takes place in the early ’80s in Manhattan and Gabriel is a modestly successful architect who is unhappy with his life. He feels unchallenged by his job and begins to consider writing a play about all the people in his life. There is his wife Annie (Delany) who is a successful art dealer and lives together with their daughter. Also, Gabriel has a close homosexual friend from work named Rocky (a hilarious Mario Van Peebles) that he confides in as well as a Pamela (a perfect Stockard Channing) an acquaintance who is also a theater agent that Gabriel convinces to represent him. Then there is Cari (the impeccable Mira Sorvino), Gabriel’s best friend since childhood. Gabriel and Cari slept together once in high school and have never talked about it since but the attraction between them are obvious.
Over the years Cari has become a part of Gabriel’s extended family and was welcomed in by Annie as an Aunt to their child and a close family confidante. Feeling unfulfilled with his life, Gabriel quits his job and begins writing his play. However things don’t go well at first. He often retreats to the bathroom to work on the script and it’s usually at a time when he decides that he can’t handle the responsibilities of his life. So he could be in an argument with Annie and then all the sudden disappear to begin work on his play. Slowly this begins to alienate his friends and family and things get worse when they begin to realize that Gabriel is using them for inspiration in his play. Eventually, Annie leaves Gabriel with their daughter and his left alone to fend for himself. While Gabriel struggles to finish his manuscript, he begins to take a close look at his life and evaluate the good and the bad, which leads him to realize that what he was missing was right in front of him all along. What follows his a funny and witty story about love, life and the pursuit of happiness.
While it is at times difficult to watch Gabriel fumble through his life, the film does a great job of making you feel sorry for him while wanting him to succeed. Hutton won an Oscar in the early ’80s for his work in the Robert Redford film “Ordinary People” and shows that he still has the acting goods all these years later. His performance is layered, showing a self-involved man who slowly pulls away those layers to better his self as a human being. It’s fascinating to watch Hutton create this character, which is so vulnerable yet confused about his own purpose in life. I think that is something many people can relate to. Delany is also very good in the film as the strong and often emotionally abused Annie who doesn’t understand how Gabriel can be so unhappy. You feel the pain of her character as she watches her marriage fall apart.
But it is another Oscar winner, Mira Sorvino, who really shines in the film and is a breath of fresh air in every scene she appears. Sorvino has crafted a character that is at once funny, sexy, and strong willed. Cari is a hipster musical agent, living in the village that represents rock bands and spends most of her nights at bars drinking. Cari is exactly the female friend that every married man dreams of. It’s clear how and why Gabriel would become attracted to this woman. Writer/director Brooks Branch does a wonderful job of balancing the humor and the drama in this film. I really liked the choice to set the film in the ’80s, it gave it some character while not making it all about that. Stockard Channing is also excellent as Gabriel’s no-nonsense agent. In the end, Multiple Sarcasms is a lovely, touching film that will hold a mirror up to your own life and make you take a good hard look at what makes you happy.
