"Mona Lisa" remains one of Neil Jordan's best movies. Bob Hoskins plays George a small time thug who took went to prison to protect his boss Mortwell (Michael Caine). To reward George for his sacrifice he gives him a job chaffeuring around Simone (Cathy Tyson)a high priced call girl that Mortwell wants to keep track of. Despite her initial chilly reception, George falls in love with her. Ultimately she asks him to make a major sacrifice so she can be free of Mortwell and his world. It's a price that leads to tragedy and violence.A brilliant film noir, Hoskins earned an Oscar nomination for his performance and really he deserved it. His portrayal of George is complex. While he's a criminal, he's also surprisingly naive and innocent in his own way and the code of conduct he follows in his life reflects much more solid values than that of a petty crook. Michael Caine shines in a pivotal but small role as Mortwell. Caine has never given a performance as nasty and chillingly evil as he does here. Cathy Tyson ("The Serpent and the Rainbow", "Priest") also deserves kudos for her performance as Simone. Although the surface of her character is chilly she hints at the depths of emotion raging beneath the surface of this sophisticated and sad woman.
The Criterion edition of this looks exceptionally good with nice color reproduction and a crisp, sharp picture. It appears that the same master that was used for the 1996 laserdisc was used here, though, and it probably should have been remastered from a new digital transfer. While presented in its original format this isn't an anamorphic transfer that I can tell which is, again, another reason to update this and create a high definition DVD.
Neil Jordan and Bob Hoskins commentary track provide a surprising amount of interesting detail about the making of the movie. Usually commentary tracks with an actor and director devolves into a lovefest with little actually uncovered but that's not the case here. We learn about the difficulty that Jordan had initially interesting backers in the project and how pivotal the casting of Michael Caine was to making this project viable.
I still would have liked to have more in the way of extras for this classic film. Like the recent re-release of "The Crying Game", there has to be some alternate scenes that survived or outtakes that might have been of interest to fans. Additionally, why not do a retrospective documentary or a glimpse back at Jordan's career as a featurette? Hopefully Criterion (or whomever picks up the license on this film for DVD release in the US) will remaster this and add the extras that this classic film calls for.
There's an unforgettable moment, when they're both in tears, hiding behind silly plastic eyeglasses in a garish carnival setting, and, trying to explain her odd situation that he's just beginning to understand, she says, "Haven't you ever needed someone?" and he squeezes out the reply: "All the time."
It's a remarkably tender story in a chokingly ugly environment. Caine is gruesomely sleazy.
I remember seeing this when it first came out, about the time of "Blue Velvet" and "Brazil"; what an amazing era that was! All three movies even had ironically sweet or upbeat theme songs from a few decades before.
Director Neil Jordan later moved on to the weirder pastures of "The Crying Game," and then the glossy jobs "Interview with the Vampire" and now "The End of the Affair," but I still consider this his best -not to mention Bob Hoskins's most incredible acting work.I believe Neil Jordan put together a work of perfection here. I deeply cared for the two main characters (played brilliantly by Hoskins and Tyson). The portrayal of the pain of isolation and the hopelessness of not being able to connect with their desires touched me at a level only great works can do. All the details of a film are done with perfection.(Don't forget the fine little performance of Robbie Coltrane who later became the main charater in "Cracker".) But given the individual stengths of the fascinating plot, the extraordinary performances and the effective filming and music, it is the whole, the gestalt of this work, that reaches the highest level of art.
Read Best Reviews of Mona Lisa (1986) Here
Firstly I would say that if you have in your library John Mackenzie's THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, also available in the Criterion collection, and Neil Jordan's MONA LISA, you already have a good specimen of what the British cinema was able to offer in the eighties. A fabulous actor, Bob Hoskins, is present in both movies; he won the best actor prize at the 1986 Cannes Festival for MONA LISA.Neil Jordan began his career as a writer and is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting film directors nowadays. It's always challenging for the common viewer to watch a movie directed by a former writer. One often wonders why the director has left his books for the cinema. Some of these ex-writers use the camera as if they were handling a pen and the result is dreadful. Or too intellectual. Fortunately, with MONA LISA, Neil Jordan has created a stunning visual world and George and Simone's night wanderings through the London underworld an unforgettable cinematographic journey.
MONA LISA develops a lot of themes that will touch you in a way or in another. The different levels of the movie are so well mingled in the story that you will be able to watch MONA LISA several times and still discover little pearls hidden by the brilliant director. At the end of the movie, I just wanted to check the sound quality of the commentary track recorded in 1996 by Neil Jordan and Bob Hoskins and I found myself trapped into MONA LISA for an immediate second screening.
Apart from the commentary, this Criterion DVD offers the theatrical trailer and a one page written Neil Jordan commentary.
A DVD for your library.
Want Mona Lisa (1986) Discount?
Upon its 1986 release, "Mona Lisa" was proclaimed a masterpiece of the British crime film drama; it brought the Irish-born Neil Jordan, who'd both written and directed it, to the forefront of working British film directors. Reminded everyone of Nat King Cole's great song. Won its star Bob Hoskins an Academy Award nomination, as well as the Cannes Film Festival and British Academy Awards. It's since been recognized as one of the big three of British noir crime dramas: Michael Caine made "Get Carter," Hoskins made "The Long Good Friday;" together, they made "Mona Lisa."The movie has frequently been compared to Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," for many reasons. Hoskins stars as George, typical, low-wattage East End thug, just getting out of jail after doing seven years for crime boss Mortwell (Caine). George thinks he's owed; Caine gives him a job chauffeuring high priced hooker Simone (Cathy Tyson). Hoskins is expert, as ever, in conveying the controlled violence in George's soul; he also conveys as well as possible the character's surprising naivete. Caine is the cool, even-tempered, joking, fierce villain we saw in "Get Carter;" there's a ten-second bit where he allows Mortwell's mask to slip; we see him with bared teeth, closing in for the kill. Tyson, on her way to a television career, does a good job as Simone, with her own problems. The young Sammi Davis, best known for "Hope and Glory,' stands out as an exploited young drug-addicted prostitute. And the economy-sized Scots comic Robbie Coltrane, before his television success as "Cracker," seems wasted in a pointless subplot, as George's best friend.
Still, to me, the most apt comparison to this movie is actually the movie of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." We have Coltrane, as Hoskin's friend, often asking him to "Tell me a story, George." That's a direct quote from Lenny (Lon Chaney Jr.)'s frequent request to his George, Burgess Meredith. And we have cockney George buying a rabbit for Mortwell, we're never told why, but Lenny had a pet rabbit in "Of Mice and Men." However, on a first viewing after several years, what was most striking to me about this film was how mannered the script is, how careful to alternate dramatic highs and lows. And how unlikely it is that Hoskins' character could be quite so naive, after an adult life spent the shady side of the law, and a seven-year jail stint.
The seamy London underworld of homelessness, drugs, and kinky sex is well-captured in this movie; the powerful photography gives us the feel of some of the city's meanest inhabitants and streets.
Otherwise, this movie builds upon another of Jordan's signature themes: the love of a man for an inappropriate woman. George is evidently greatly mistaken in believing that a character as damaged as Simone can be talked into a future of love, marriage, and a baby carriage. The same theme pops immediately to mind in at least the eight other feature films, that Jordan wrote, and/or directed, that I've seen. Many viewers will be familiar with the recent "Breakfast on Pluto." Liam Neeson, an Irish parish priest, fathers a child upon his housekeeper, whom he actually loves. In "The End of the Affair," Ralph Fiennes tries to continue seeing Julianne Moore, but she's sworn off him, in a prayer to God to save his life during the London blitz. In "Interview with the Vampire," the seven-year old vampire played by Kirsten Dunst, will never, in all eternity, be mature enough for Tom Cruise's undead character. In "The Crying Game,"well, the transvestite Dil will never be the woman Fergus thought she was. Then there's "The Good Thief:" Nick Nolte's old enough to be a grandfather to that movie's teenage prostitute. In "We're No Angels," Robert De Niro, masquerading as a priest, is flummoxed by Demi Moore's Molly. And "The Miracle," an adopted Irish teenager unknowingly falls in love with his biological, and fully-aware, mother. And then there's "High Spirits," Peter O'Toole at his least disciplined, a silly little haunted castle movie. Poor Steve Guttenberg finds himself in love with a ghost in that one. So what's a feller to do?
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