Blind Date

Directed by Stanley Tucci

At The Cinema Village

Runtime: 80 min.

A low-key and somewhat dour remake of the late Theo Van Gogh’s 1996 film, Blind Date is the kind of movie that some will dismiss as “stagy.” The dialogue-driven character study is set entirely within the confines of a dimly-lit restaurant, and one can easily imagine the series of encounters between troubled spouses Don (Stanley Tucci) and Janna (Patricia Clarkson) taking place in some hole-in-the-wall black box in the West Village. Even the film’s central conceit leans toward the theatrical: Don and Janna pretend to go on a series of “blind dates,” assuming constructed identities and exchanging made-up anecdotes in the hope of finally confronting the pent-up resentments and anger that have been festering since their young daughter’s death.

Yet Blind Date’s constricted geography and talk-heavy scenes often benefit from an overt lack of cinematic flair. Tucci—who also directs—keeps his camera largely unobtrusive, as he seems to know that the film’s true interest lies in how the details of Don and Janna’s real life slowly seep through the artifice of their meetings. The restaurant becomes a kind of relationship purgatory, with the couple locked in a self-imposed cycle of variations on their theme of marital distrust and bitterness.

This process would have been far more intriguing, of course, had we weren’t constantly told about Don and Janna’s past via an ill-considered voiceover by the couple’s dead daughter. Having not seen Van Gogh’s original, I cannot say whether this was his misstep or Tucci’s (the film was made as part of a larger tribute to Van Gogh, who was murdered by a religious fundamentalist in 2004). Either way, it dilutes Blind Date’s central mystery and probably would have turned me off to the whole film if not for Tucci and Clarkson’s sensuous, intriguing performances.

The film slides toward the obvious as it proceeds, but these two pros hint at a world of sorrow and hurt that makes you lean in closer, searching for hard truths amidst the web of make-believe that both ensnares and binds this tragic duo.