Peter Weir's "The Year of Living Dangerously" gives us an Australian foreign correspondent desperate to prove himself in his career, a marvelously strange character as his photographer sidekick, sets the whole thing in the politically tumultuous Indonesia of the 1960s, and then can think of nothing better to do with any of this material than focus on a boring love story between two white people.
Ah well. At least one of those white people is played by Sigourney Weaver, who is always watchable even if not given a very interesting character to play here. The other is played by, of course, Mel Gibson, who's not much of an actor now and wasn't then either, but is easy enough on the eyes. The movie's shining asset is Linda Hunt in the role of the photographer, an American Chinese dwarf named Billy Kwan, whose mysterious and ambiguous motives give the film what suspense it has, and far more than the "will civil war keep our two lovers apart?" story line that comprises most of the film.
Linda Hunt won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Billy, to date the only time in Oscar history that an actor has won an Oscar for playing someone of the opposite gender.
Grade: B
Ah well. At least one of those white people is played by Sigourney Weaver, who is always watchable even if not given a very interesting character to play here. The other is played by, of course, Mel Gibson, who's not much of an actor now and wasn't then either, but is easy enough on the eyes. The movie's shining asset is Linda Hunt in the role of the photographer, an American Chinese dwarf named Billy Kwan, whose mysterious and ambiguous motives give the film what suspense it has, and far more than the "will civil war keep our two lovers apart?" story line that comprises most of the film.
Linda Hunt won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Billy, to date the only time in Oscar history that an actor has won an Oscar for playing someone of the opposite gender.
Grade: B