Review ‘The Palace’: Roman Polanski’s horrible ensemble comedy tries to eat up the rich

For an admirer of his best work, writing about a new film by Roman Polanski is like facing a minefield of unsolvable questions: Can this film be judged as the others, given the director’s criminal record and tarnished reputation? ? Is it possible to praise a work of art if certain parts of an artist’s life are objectionable, or should the two be separated? Does Polanski still have to make films? Should this film be written about at all?

Those questions would be harder to answer if Polanski, who is now 90, made something on the level of: chinatown or Rosemary’s baby. Or even something like that The tenant or Panic or Repulsion or his feature film debut, Knife in the waterwhich came out over 60 years ago and earned him his first Oscar nomination.

But the latest from the director, The palace, leaves little room for ambiguity. It’s the worst thing he’s ever made—or at least the worst movie this critic has ever seen of him. (I only missed a few titles in his filmography, which now numbers 23 feature films.)

Set in a resort in the Swiss Alps on New Year’s Eve 1999, this utter bust of an ensemble comedy features a group of ghastly rich people who welcome the new millennium with champagne, fireworks, and a cart filled with all-you-can-eat caviar. Polanski then serves them vomit, piss, dog shit, a male porn star’s busted nose, a dead Texas billionaire with an eternal erection, and so much plastic surgery that he may have to open his own clinic to treat the cast – including Mickey Rourke. , who plays the biggest a-hole of them all.

Perhaps dumping the 1% is a way for the director to exonerate himself in the public eye, by focusing on characters far worse than many people think he is. It is probably the only excuse that can be made for this grotesque and forgettable film, which premiered in Venice just four years after the director won a major award here with An officer and a spy – a solid historical thriller that also served as a veiled critique of Polanski’s numerous opponents.

There is no such subtext in it The palace, which as a comedy is never funny, even though it tries very hard to be – going so far as to insert a computer-generated penguin for laughs. (Because penguins are funny, right?) The director co-wrote the script with Ewa Piaskowska and former co-writer Jerzy Skolimowski (EO), who wrote Knife in the waterbut all three are totally tone-deaf when it comes to jokes.

Is a scene where French actress Fanny Ardant faints after her chihuahua drops a load on her bed meant to be hilarious? What about the one where the dog discovers her vibrator in front of the hotel plumber? Or when John Cleese’s character asks his much younger wife (Bronwyn James) for oral sex after he gives her a precious Chopard necklace? Or when the illegitimate Czech son (Danny Exnar) of Rourke’s fraudulent money grab, Bill Crush, shows up at the hotel with his entire family and is humiliated in the lobby? Or how about the gang of Russian oligarch gangsters celebrating Putin’s sudden rise to power (announced live by Boris Yeltsin on television) while their blonde girlfriends struggle in the next room?

There are many more such comic gems in it The palace – that is, if you prefer your jokes served as poop on a platter (another joke involving Ardant’s faithful little companion.) Not that Polanski has been allergic to laughter at all: many of his films, including some of his dear, have a dark and surreal sense of humor – think, for example, of all the bad things that happen to Nicholson’s Jake Gittes in chinatown. But the director never tried to make a real comedy, except for the rarely seen ones What? and the brutal horror parody The fearless vampire killerswhich, compared to this movie, looks like Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder and Charlie Chaplin, all on their best days.

The palace is also meant to be a social satire from top to bottom, and it’s true that the hotel staff, led by the hard-working and thoughtful Hansueli (Oliver Masucci, who looks like Mads Mikkelsen with less chin), are all interchangeable characters compared to the horrible people whom they serve. But they are neither funny nor interesting, and they get scolded by their wealthy guests throughout the movie.

Filmed by longtime DP Pawel Edelman and playfully scored by Alexandre Desplat, the story is set in the elite Swiss ski resort of Gstaad, where Polanski has locked himself up at various points in his life since fleeing the United States in 1978. low opinion of the people visiting that place, and it would have made more sense if The palace closed when they were burned alive in a Millennium-induced fire.

Instead, we get a rather terrifying sequence of images towards the end, when everyone heads to the roof to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks explode over the Alps, ushering in the new century with a blast. Polanski switches back and forth between the fireworks and his wretched bunch of money bags as they watch the show in awe, their botoxed faces illuminated by many flashes of red and blue.

It’s like looking at a Hieronymus Bosch painting, and it’s a desperate vision to leave us behind. (Though — SPOILER ALERT — the film’s final shot is of the chihuahua having intercourse with the penguin. No joke.) If this turns out to be Polanski’s last effort, it’s a shame to end a career that has seen several of the best modern films. works with something so downright gloomy. The director has never had an uplifting outlook on life, but… The palace doesn’t just show that a rich man’s world has turned into bullshit, it’s basically a bullshit movie.