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THE IMPOSTORS
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After Time magazine many years ago ran a cover story profile of Peter Sellers, the editors received a letter from Peter Sellers, thanking them for explaining him to himself, and that is somehow the kernel of the actor's psyche; they are never themselves except when playing others. So it is with real affection that writer-director Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) gives us The Impostors, a Screwball Comedy about two down-and-out actors, Arthur (Tucci) and Maurice (Oliver Platt, Married to the Mob). No film that I can recall shows the actor's character with as much affectionate insight as The Impostors, whose Arthur and Maurice ply their unpaid craft for entertainment and creampuffs, practicing for each other and for the camera:
Arthur: [as a cockney beggar] Please, sir, I want some more. Y'see, sir, I've not eaten for fourteen days since me mum died of the group.
Maurice: Croup.
Arthur: Croup. Of the croup, she died, leaving me and my mentally ill brother, 'ere, to fend for ourselves.
In the tradition of madcap adventure, Maurice throws out a spectacular insult to absent overblown thespian and triumphant Hamlet Sir Jeremy Burtom (the infinitely varied Alfred Molina, Spiderman 2): "I say no, saggy, boozy, farty boy, I say no!" only to find themselves, in a chase worthy of the Marx Brothers, unwitting stowaways on a Transatlantic liner crammed to the gunwales with oddball characters, from the overly romantic captain pining ("All my life, I look for a woman I once loved, almond eyes and the mouth of a cherub") to the steward Meistrich (Campbell Scott, The Spanish Prisoner), Teutonic spit and polish, white gloves and pining for spunky American social director Lil (Lili Taylor, I Shot Andy Warhol), and giving off a whiff of repressed sadomasochism:
Meistrich: The danger of the chase hass made you perspire. It has made me also ... moist.
The ship is shot through with other impostors all crackling Thirties dialog: a man's man (Billy Connolly, Mrs. Brown) who likes real manly men:
Sparks: [shaking hands] Do you feel that grip?
First Mate: I do sir. I do.
Sparks: Powerful enough to snap the neck of a small beast, and yet sensitive enough to caress the tender throat of a young castrato. Coax a song out of him.
a bomb-cradling anarchist, two cons on the lam for a big score ("Do you love me, Johnny?" "Like a bee loves honey,"), a techno-erotic Nubian sheik with an excessive fondness for the gramophone, an impoverished ("I'd tip you, but at the moment I'm clothing rich and money poor") and angry widow:
Mrs. Essendine: [talking about her husband] That philanthropic cocksucker left all the money to the poor and not a dirty dime to me! Oh, Mary, Mother of God, what have I ever done to you? Life ... without money is no goddamned life at all! You know that!
All people are impostors, the film says, and we should revel in our impostures, for through them we express our true inner selves (Second Life players, take note). Forced to improvise every step of the way, Arthur and Maurice bring out their souls and the souls of others, in set pieces lovingly lifted or reimagined from such classics as Laurel and Hardy, Fields' The Bank Dick, and the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera. The comic climax occurs when Sir Jeremy, recognizing Arthur, shouts "Impostor!" and half the passengers and crew freeze guiltily in place.
The Impostors is sprinkled with comic jewels and terrific ensemble acting (I haven't even mentioned Steve Buscemi, Hope Davis, Allison Janney, Tony Shaloub, or Isabella Rosselini), including perhaps the greatest one-scene, one-speech uncredited self-mocking cameo I can remember (it occurs early and you don't want to miss it) and this little three-character rondo when Italian lover Marco is flinching from his task of tracking down and shooting Arthur and Maurice:
Marco: But I've never killed anyone before!
Sir Jeremy Burtom: Well, you'll have to fucking learn.
Meistrich: It's really not zat hard.
Until the real death seems just around the corner --
Arthur: Oh, no! We're going to die! We're going to...
Maurice: Don't you see? This will be your great dramatic death!
Arthur: I don't want a real one!
Yet this is a comedy, so good triumphs over evil, the lonely have their hope renewed, love conquers all, and the ship sails into port with a white-tie-and-tails song-and-dance exit that neatly captures the willing suspension of disbelief that we must bring to the movies if we are to enjoy them as intended by their actors, those ultimate romantics, those impostors.