The trailer for "Love Liza" looked promising: A grieving, half-crazy Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Happiness," "Magnolia") starts flying remote control planes as a way to escape the pain of his wife's death. However, what appears to be a refreshing film with an intriguing plot in a two-minute trailer is actually 90-minutes of sheer emotional torture.
Hoffman plays Wilson Joel, a geeky and successful Web designer whose wife, Liza, recently committed suicide by starting her car in a locked garage. She left behind a sealed letter but Wilson cannot bring himself to open it despite pressures from his mother-in-law (Kathy Bates) and he carries it around in his pocket, allowing it to become his albatross.
The only moment of comic relief occurs when a coworker tells a very mediocre joke and Wilson -- literally -- cannot stop laughing. His sympathetic boss asks him to take time off, and Wilson is suddenly faced with weeks of unstructured time.
After a brief stint on a tropical island where he and Liza honeymooned, he returns home to take long, aimless drives. He becomes obsessed with gasoline pumps, grabs a few gallons to go and proceeds to huff his way into oblivion.
To cover his new addiction and the constant smell of gas in his house, he tells visitors that he started flying remote control planes (which he later finds out don't even run on gasoline.) A coworker attempts to help by sending her lonely brother Denny (Jack Kehler), a true R/C enthusiast, over to his house to compare toys. Before long, Wilson, who is now bleary eyed, dim witted and sporting a bloody nose, attends R/C conventions with Denny to have easy access to model-airplane gas.
Hoffman is superb. His pained facial expressions early in the film brillantly contrast his unsettling blank face later on. Plus, Hoffman's puppy-dog extrado and unkempt look make him appear even more vulnerable and pathetic. Kehler is also great as a man so desperate for company he accepts the occasionally-conscious Wilson as his friend. He also allows us to peak inside the mind of a simple person enthralled by toy car racing.
Surprisingly, despite the wonderful acting, it was the screenplay, written by Hoffman's brother Gordy, that earned a screenwriting award at Sundance in 2002. Although the plot is interesting -- the topics of remote control and gas huffing rarely, if ever, appear in films -- the supporting characters other than Kehler are completely underdeveloped and the storyline is as aimless as Wilson's driving.
Speaking of driving, there are too many scenes of Hoffman tooling around in his car with a gas-soaked rag shoved into his nostrils. However, these scenes also contain blurry, drug-induced cinematography that is some of the film's finest camera work.
Directed by actor Todd Louiso ("High Fidelity"), this movie is just too depressing and fumigates the audience with the fact that grief is like a suspension in hell. Spare yourself the utter hopelessness of this feel-bad indie.
"Love Liza" opens Fri., March 14 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
