h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

SPOILER Warning: For anyone who actually reads this, I will divulge some plotlines, so if you haven’t seen the films and don’t want to know please approach with caution.

For quite some time now I’ve had a hankering to write about the various films Sarah Michelle Gellar has made. This is not something that anyone who does not have a pre-existing interest in Gellar would find especially worthy of reading but the very fact that there is no particular point to it other than my own enjoyment makes it worthwhile to me. I’ll begin at the obvious starting point, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’, but first I’ll briefly refer back to what she did before that.

Gellar has worked on TV and in films, as well as appearing in New York theatre. She started out doing commercials, most notoriously one for Burger King that resulted in her being unsuccessfully sued by McDonald’s when she was just five years old. As a child, she had roles in a couple of TV movies, ‘An Invasion of Privacy’ and ‘A Woman Named Jackie’ (playing Jacqueline Bouvier – Jackie Kennedy – as a young girl). She also appeared in a few cinema-release films: ‘Over The Brooklyn Bridge’, a comedy starring Elliott Gould, ‘Funny Farm’, a Chevy Chase film, and ‘High Stakes’, a urban drama-thriller with Sally Kirkland and Kathy Bates. She was one of the main cast in a short-lived kids TV magazine show called ‘Girl Talk’ and then secured the leading role in ‘Swan’s Crossing’, a TV soap aimed at pre-teen and teenage viewers. This show was cancelled after 65 episodes, but it has retained a small cult following in America and it is still possible to find a couple of websites devoted to it.

From there she landed the role of Kendall Hart in the long-running daytime soap ‘All My Children’, which had first premiered in 1970. Her arrival was greeted with ecstatic reviews and the Kendall Hart character proved to be a huge hit. There were rumours at the time that Susan Lucci, the star of the show, conducted a campaign of bullying against her. This is something the notoriously tight-lipped and guarded Gellar has always avoided talking about, although she did say, “Susan and I didn’t have the easiest working relationship. We didn’t do lunch. We weren’t shopping together on weekends. Not everyone gets along every second of the day, but the stories were blown incredibly out of proportion.”

Gellar had signed a two-year contract when she joined the show and declined to sign for another term, announcing that she was leaving. Shortly before the announcement was made public she won a “Best Young Actress” EMMY for her performance as Kendall Hart.

It has been rumoured that in 1995 she was offered the lead female role, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. However, filming clashed with her commitment to ‘All My Children’. The producers of that show refused to give her leave of absence to make the film and she was forced to pull out. The part went instead to Claire Danes, star of the TV show ‘My So Called Life’; a show that Joss Whedon freely acknowledges had an influence on ‘Buffy’.

With this somewhat long-winded introduction finally completed, I’ll get on to the films.

“Basically I only like to choose films that I don’t understand. As long as they’re greater than my mental capacity, I figure I gotta be doing something artful, right? Isn’t that what makes something art when you don’t understand it?”
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Southland Tales press junket (freezedriedmovies.com September 2005)

At this point I want to mention ‘Beverly Hills Family Robinson’, which is actually Gellar’s first film in a starring role, rather than ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’. This TV family-film was made by Disney and seems to have first been broadcast on the (Disney-owned) ABC network in America in 1997. It stars Gellar, alongside Dyan Cannon and Martin Mull (a stand-up comedian and actor I quite liked when I was young). I’m not clear exactly when the film was made, but I’m guessing that it must have been sometime during the period between Gellar leaving ‘All My Children’ and signing to ‘Buffy’. I can imagine that it’s very cheesy but I’ve long wanted to see it. I don’t really know why, but I have a genuine affection for these kinds of films. It is available on video in America, but as far as I know it has never been released on DVD.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997)

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ was released in America in October 1997, one month after the start of the second season of ‘Buffy’. However, contrary to popular belief, Gellar’s film career was not kick-started by (and entirely reliant on) her leading role in BtVS (as important as it was). It was ‘All My Children’ more than anything else that first elevated her to ‘leading role’ status.

Written by Kevin Williamson (the creator of ‘Dawson’s Creek’) and coming on the back of the enormous critical and commercial success of his film ‘Scream’, this one received mixed reviews at the time but was a sizeable box office hit, taking in just under $126 million. Opinion about the film has become increasingly negative in the years since then; partly because Williamson’s reputation has declined, partly because slasher-movies in general are to some extent out of fashion, but largely I suspect because the main cast (Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr in particular) have all become somewhat contentious figures in recent years. I think it would be fair to say that outside of his fanbase very few people are prepared to admit to liking FPJ films. Gellar herself has commented that she was simply required to run around being helpless with her breasts bouncing up and down but I think she is being unnecessarily dismissive of the film.

This is not a piece of high-art cinema but it’s a perfectly decent and well-acted film. Gellar and Ryan Phillippe, in particular, both give excellent performances. Although Gellar’s character, Helen Shivers, is vacuous and self-absorbed, Gellar successfully taps into her vulnerability, especially after her friendship with Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has been irreconcilably damaged.

One of the film’s cleverest moments is Helen’s death. We’ve already witnessed her relationship with Julie (her best friend) turn sour. Her big plans to move to New York don’t work out. She’s broken up with her obnoxious boyfriend Barry (Ryan Phillippe). Her father is inattentive and her elder sister is callous and jealous of her. The killer hacks off her beloved hair while she is sleeping. She sees Barry become his next victim, something nobody will believe, and also witnesses the killing of her sister. Her own death comes immediately after she has handed back her crown following her year as the teenage Homecoming Queen. The last thing she could cling onto that actually made her feel special has been taken from her and effectively her dead-end life is over, even though she is just 19 years old. Her brutal death merely serves to symbolise this.

I went to the cinema to see this film a couple of years before I started to watch ‘Buffy’. I really liked it then and I absolutely love it now. It is in fact an all-time favourite of mine. I do like horror films in general and I don’t think the criticism this one gets these days is at all deserved. It is very stereotypical of slasher-movies of that period but it’s also a good example of the genre. Apart from all that, it features Anne Heche, who I happen to like. She might be a bit troubled, but that has got nothing to do with her talents as an actor. Also, a favourite band of mine, Southern Culture On The Skids, are briefly featured during the beach party scene, which is another reason I feel pre-disposed towards the film.

SCREAM 2 (1997)

“I didn’t have to push very hard because we fell in love with her, too. It’s a juicy little part and she’s rocking. I want her in every one of my movies because you know when you hire her to do a job she’s not going to be in her trailer complaining about everything. She’s going to be right out there giving you the tenth take in the freezing cold.”
Kevin Williamson

‘Scream 2’ was released in America in December 1997 and took $172 million at the box office, making it the fourteenth biggest box office hit of the year. In case you are wondering why I am quoting this trivia, it’s partly because I like facts and figures, but mainly because Gellar comes in for a lot of criticism and all of her films are often alleged to have been flops, commercially as well as artistically. I fully accept that the box office success of a film is no indication of its worth but I’m just putting the record straight.

Gellar is not a big star and I have serious doubts that she will ever join the ranks of the so-called Hollywood ‘A-list’. However, overall she actually has one of the best box office records of any female actor working in Hollywood at the moment. Having said that, I fully appreciate that she is not the actual reason why films like ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and ‘Scream 2’ were successful at the box office. She does bring a fanbase with her, but is certainly not the over-riding factor when assessing the box-office performance of genre films like this; films that already have a built-in audience. In any case, at the time these films were made Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt were undoubtedly better known.

Gellar’s role in ‘Scream 2’, playing Casey ‘Cici’ Cooper, is a small one, but it’s also one of the highlights of the film. I like it but I do think it’s just a bit too knowingly clever-clever at times. For me, it’s not close to being as good as the first film, which, of course, has the added attraction of Drew Barrymore (who I have a great deal of time for) and a rollicking, over-the-top performance by the wonderful Matthew Lillard.

SMALL SOLDIERS (1998)

Gellar provided the voice of Gwendy Doll in ‘Small Soldiers’, directed by Joe Dante (‘The Howling’, ‘Gremlins’, ‘Innerspace’, etc). It was released in America in July 1998. The box office gross of this film was just over $95 million. I’ve never actually seen the film so I can’t really say any more about it.

SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE (1999)

‘Simply Irresistible’ is, as far as most people are concerned, a turkey and I absolutely adore it!

During her break following the end of production on the second season of ‘Buffy’, Gellar filmed ‘Cruel Intentions’ in New York and then joined the production of ‘Vanilla Fog’, a romantic comedy, also shot in New York. To ensure that filming was completed before Gellar’s commitment to the third season of ‘Buffy’, the first-unit production was wrapped-up very quickly. The intention was always that the film be ready for release in February 1999 to coincide with Valentine’s Day and cash-in on Gellar’s increasing “teen appeal”, which was then at its peak.

With a change of title to ‘Simply Irresistible’ (personally, I think they should have stuck with the original), the film opened in America on 5 February 1999 and had a domestic box office gross of less than $4.5 million, against a budget of $6 million. To put the budget into some kind of perspective, ‘Runaway Bride’, the Julia Roberts and Richard Gere rom-com released the same year, had a production and marketing budget in excess of $100 million. However, it should also be noted that the worldwide box office gross of that film was $310 million. It is also worth making mention of the fact that the pilot episode of the TV show ‘Lost’ cost $12 million to make, although it should be taken into account that costs will have increased in the last seven years or so. Oddly enough, the target audience for ‘Simply Irresistible’ was probably largely stolen by the Freddie Prinze Jr film ‘She’s All That’ (a film in which Gellar makes a cameo appearance), which was released one week earlier and went on to pull in $103 million at the box office.

‘Simply Irresistible’ was written by a film industry lawyer and first-time writer, Judith Roberts, and directed by her husband Mark Tarlov, a former speech writer for the Chief Justice, and producer of the films ‘Mortal Thoughts’, ‘Serial Mom’ and ‘Copycat’. Gellar has subsequently said she made a mistake signing to make the film, giving a number of reasons including the fact that she was simply too young and ill-equipped for the role. There is undoubtedly some justification in her comments but I do think she is being overly critical. Its weaknesses are very evident, but this film really isn’t all that bad.

With a few exceptions, critics didn’t savage the film, although there were the predictable comments that it was ‘simply resistible’ (whoever came up with the change of title really should have seen that one coming). They merely gave it muted reviews, pointing out that it’s very derivative (several made reference to the similarities to ‘Like Water for Chocolate’) and meanders along without ever really going anywhere. Gellar, in general, got fairly good notices, although there were critics who took the opportunity to really stick the knife in.

“A graduate of the head-tossing school of acting with no depth and the emotional palette of a tuna fish, Gellar is not suited for the romantic lead… It is astonishing that Gellar, apparently unable to produce any range of emotion at all, was chosen by director Tarlov as the lead in this highly emotional story. But perhaps it was intentional; maybe we’re supposed to guess her feelings by her food, in the absence of any other clues… The love story of Simply Irresistible is satisfying in an offbeat way, and the film is visually mouth-watering, but the terrible juvenile Gellar’s lacklustre performance brings it down several steps from what it could and should be.”
John R McEwen: The Republican

So what’s it about? It will hardly come as a surprise to learn that it’s a bog standard rom-com storyline. Two people from very different backgrounds meet and fall in love. They become estranged (in this case, he thinks she’s a witch), but circumstances conspire to bring them back together and everyone lives happily ever after.

Much was made of the fact that the celebrated and exclusive New York fashion designer Todd Oldham designed Gellar’s wardrobe for the film. His designs were roundly criticised for being wilfully garish and idiosyncratic, but they are typical of his style (these days he has turned his attention to exclusive furniture design). I really like them, not that I could exactly be called a fashion expert! They do fit in nicely with the autumnal setting and the many visual references to Art Deco to be found in film.

‘Simply Irresistible’ is not a great film. It is probably not even a very good film. However, it certainly isn’t a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination and it is genuinely and unashamedly warm-hearted. Gellar is very engaging in the lead role. It’s not an acting tour-de-force by any means, but it’s a nicely judged performance that plays to many of her strengths as an actor. She possesses something of the kind of magnetic quality that many of the iconic film stars have, although I am not suggesting for one moment that she falls within this category. However, she does genuinely have screen charisma and is able to project a very strong presence in front of the camera. What is perhaps lacking in ‘Simply Irresistible’ is much in the way of any real chemistry with her co-star Sean Patrick Flanery.

If you don’t like romantic comedies you’ll hate it. If you do like romantic comedies but you don’t like Sarah Michelle Gellar you’ll hate it. If you like Sarah Michelle Gellar but believe that the only role she should ever be allowed to play is Buffy you’ll hate it. If you happen to like romantic comedies and Sarah Michelle Gellar you might be inclined to accept the obvious failings of the film and enjoy it for what it is. I happen to like romantic comedies and the fantasy elements here also work for me.

In the end, had more time been spent polishing the script, had the production not been so rushed and had the ‘magic conduit’ not been a crab seemingly controlled by puppet-strings (I am not joking), ‘Simply Irresistible’ would have undoubtedly been a better film. Aiming a ‘grown-up’ rom-com at a teenage audience was perhaps a mistake, but the film was trying to cash-in on two affordable young actors who were both creating names for themselves in TV shows at the time. It is what it is and it has its own genuine charm. I have tried to be objective when assessing it here, but I make no apologies when I say that I really like it a lot.

“Simply Irresistible is old-fashioned and obvious, yes, like a featherweight comedy from the 1950s, but that’s the charm. I love movies that cut loose from the moorings of the possible and dance among their fancies… It’s not a great movie, but it’s a charmer.”
Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun Times

CRUEL INTENTIONS (1999)

‘Cruel Intentions’ was released in America in March 1999 and took $76 million dollars at the box office. This is a lot of money, but it should be noted that the film had an alleged $40 million production budget, by far the biggest budget of any of Gellar’s films apart from the two ‘Scooby Doo’ outings. As an unscientific rule of thumb, it is said that a Hollywood film needs to take double its budget at the box office in order to break even. I have absolutely no idea how that seemingly nonsensical theory/calculation has been arrived at.

This is the film that many of Gellar’s hardcore fans love, and the comparatively low box office gross can probably be explained by the fact that it was given an ‘R’ rating in America, making it largely inaccessible to a sizeable proportion of her fanbase at the time. Tellingly, it was subsequently a big success on video and DVD.

‘Cruel Intentions’ is probably best known for the so-called lesbian kiss. I have always assumed that this scene is included in the film primarily as a means to generate publicity and provide a bit of titillation to attract the teenage male audience. It was a very clever piece of tacky manipulation and it worked.

What do I think of the film? To be honest, I can never fully make my mind up about it. I think it’s fine, a clever take on ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, although I’ve always thought the final scene is shockingly bad. It’s perhaps a little bit too flashy and superficial for my liking, although I hardly fall within the demographic of its target audience. Gellar’s performance is quite interesting because she’s obviously tapped into her character’s loneliness and emptiness. There is a real sense that Kathryn feels she has been abandoned and is inwardly crying out for someone to genuinely love her. Although she is a dangerously manipulative sexual predator she is also strangely childlike.

Whether or not this is something that successfully comes across to many fans of the film is a moot point. They seem to have little interest in Kathryn’s motivations for her actions. I suspect they just want to see her at her most maliciously scheming, something the film undoubtedly encourages. Gellar would subsequently be heavily criticised by her detractors for her next project, but ‘Cruel Intentions’ is certainly a more ethically debatable film than ‘Harvard Man’ and I think the character she plays here is far more sexually provocative.

It is often noted that she is playing against type in ‘Cruel Intentions’, meaning that she is playing a character quite unlike Buffy. This is quite odd considering the ordeal she went through to secure the ‘Buffy’ role. Fox apparently had serious qualms about Joss Whedon’s plans to hire her, arguing, amongst other things, that he would be casting her ‘against type’ because of her ‘All My Children’ character; a scheming, malicious vixen, very much in the tradition of daytime soaps.

The film received very disparate reviews. Some critics thought it utterly reprehensible and calculatingly tacky. Terry Lawson, writing in the Detroit Free Press, described it as “vile and vacuous.” John R McEwen of The Republican (a newspaper based in Garrett County, Maryland) makes clear that his intense dislike of Gellar in ‘Simply Irresistible’ was no one-off (and maybe suggests that his antipathy has deeper roots than a simple criticism of her acting skills).

“I thought Gellar was bad in Simply Irresistible, but watching her make pastries is infinitely more enjoyable than squirming through her attempt at evil refinement. Apart from spreading her legs and opening her blouse, her portrayal of Kathryn contains nothing that is remotely impressive… The performances by Witherspoon and Blair are not terrible, but they can’t save the film from Gellar.”

Once again, though, the respected veteran film critic Roger Ebert was much more amenable to both the film and Gellar’s performance.

“The movie is at its best in the scenes between Gellar and Phillippe, who develop a convincing emotional charge, and whose wickedness seems to work as a sexual stimulant. There’s one scene where she persuades him, emotionally and physically, to do what she wants, and we are reminded that slow, subtle eroticism is after all possible in the movies - even though recently it has been replaced by callisthenics. Gellar is effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp, and Phillippe seems cold and detached enough to make it interesting when he finally gets skewered by the arrow of true love. The best parts of the movie allow us to see how good it might all have been with a little more care...”
Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun Times

HARVARD MAN (2002)

“The money to make ‘Harvard Man’ came into place after she came aboard, but not once did she try to exploit her centrality to the financing of the movie. A lot of times in cases like this, actors will be quick to point out on the first day of shooting that they’re the reason the film got financing and that it’s their show... Not so with Sarah, and she was well aware that she was the deciding factor in getting the film’s $6 million budget approved.”
James Toback

“I made ‘Harvard Man’ for personal reasons. I wanted to challenge myself; I wanted to work with Jim. And I had a great time.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Movieline May 2002

James Toback is a New York-based independent filmmaker whose first film (as a scriptwriter) was made in 1974. He has subsequently followed an erratic career as a writer and director. His single brush with the mainstream was his script for ‘Bugsy’, but he is probably most celebrated for his collaborations with the actor Robert Downey Jr on films such as ‘The Pick-up Artist’ and ‘Black and White’. Toback has his supporters but he has never really been a consistent critics’ favourite and much of his career has been pursued in semi-obscurity.

Gellar is a fan of his films. Against the advice of her agent she set up a lunch meeting with him, during which she asked about ‘Harvard Man’, a surreal autobiographical film script that was once given the green light with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. When DiCaprio pulled out, having been cast in ‘Titanic’, the funding was withdrawn and the film was shelved. Gellar wanted to resurrect the film and her interest helped to secure new funding.

Toback, who has been described as a compulsive gambler, a theme of several of his films, and once taught English at the City College of New York, loosely based the script on his experiences in the mid 1960’s when he was studying at Harvard for a degree in philosophy. Specifically, it is based on his drug experimentation. He suffered a severe psychotic episode after deliberately ingesting an insane quantity of LSD to find out what would happen. Into this autobiographical theme, he adds a surreal subplot about a tornado in Kansas (the reference is obvious), promiscuous sexual behaviour, illegal gambling, the fixing of a college basketball game, the FBI and the Mafia. Gellar plays Cindy Bandolini, the dangerously amoral daughter of a notorious Mafia boss.

The completed film ran into problems with the film censorship board. Toback became entrenched in his reluctance to agree to several cuts they required to be made and its release was held up for well over a year. The film was finally released in America in May 2002 (one month prior to the release of the first ‘Scooby Doo’ film), was shown in just four movie theatres over a period of five months, and had a box office gross of just over $56,000. It remains, in my opinion, the best film Gellar has made to date.

A lot of Gellar’s detractors point to ‘Harvard Man’ as proof that she is a hypocrite, specifically in relation to her stance on drug use and her reluctance to agree to nude scenes in films. It would seem to me that they have become so wrapped up in their dislike for her that they can no longer objectively appreciate that she is acting, that she is an actor, and that Buffy and Cindy are two very different characters, within two very different narrative settings, neither of them having anything whatsoever to do with Gellar as a real person.

“For me, it wasn't kinky, it was awkward. Jim’s movies are sexually free… but he never asked me to push the line. He was always incredibly respectful. I’m not in a place where I’m comfortable doing nudity… What’s sexy is when sex is left to the imagination. I love when it’s implied. I roll my eyes and yawn at gratuitous sex.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Movieline May 2002

The actual plot is outrageously far-fetched, but it doesn’t purport to be anything else and is filmed with all the usual Toback trademarks: eccentric editing, split-screen multi-scenes, uneven pacing, sketchy characterisation, weird story structuring and bizarre dialogue centred around philosophical discourse. We are now about 45-minutes into the film. It’s what happens after the plot has been established that is really surreal. The film begins to concentrate on Alan’s (the lead character based on Toback) acid trip.

The world as he sees it becomes a nightmare of melting faces, figures walking out of paintings and becoming real and constant swirling voices in his head that multiply and grow into an unbearable cacophony of sound. While this happens, the existing plot continues to unfold. He is being pursued by the FBI, two comical Mafia hitmen, Cindy (Gellar) and Chesney (his philosophy lecturer and lover). Everything is strange and fragmented, intended to heighten and emphasise Alan’s descent into drug-induced temporary insanity.

Toback has deliberately cast the film with several actors who are seemingly entirely unsuited to their roles, provides them with idiosyncratic personality traits and places them in entirely implausible scenarios. For instance, Joey Lauren Adams is not the first person you might think of to play a philosophy lecturer at Harvard University and Sarah Michelle Gellar doesn’t immediately come to mind as perfect casting for the daughter of a Mafia boss. To emphasise this even more, Toback cast Gianni Russo, who appeared in the first two ‘Godfather’ films, as her father. Eric Stoltz and Rebecca Gayheart are the most unlikely FBI agents this side of David Duchovny’s character in ‘Twin Peaks’ and the jittery Adrian Grenier doesn’t exactly have an obvious physique for a star basketball player, even at college level.

Many film critics were hostile towards the film and pointed to the casting as evidence that Toback is a hopeless and wilful incompetent. Others applauded him for the bravery of his casting, observing that it worked to the advantage of the film because it confounds the expectations of the audience and is suited to the surreal and improbable scenario into which the characters had been placed.

I think ‘Harvard Man’ is genuinely a quite brilliant film, although I fully appreciate that it would not be to all tastes. As I’ve already mentioned, it is probably the best film Gellar has made so far, although not necessarily my favourite. However, I have watched it on half-a-dozen occasions and came away impressed every time.

SCOOBY DOO: THE MOVIE (2002)

Let’s get the facts and figures out of the way first. ‘Scooby Doo’ went on general release in America in June 2002, one month after the release of ‘Harvard Man’. It had a sizeable production budget, said to have been in the region of $60 million, and generated a $276 million box office gross. At the top of the pile in 2002 was ‘Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers’, with a whooping $926 million box office.

The film opened to generally appalling reviews, although as ever some film critics liked it, content to view it for what it is. Gellar later admitted in interviews that she was hurt by some of the comments she had read and had taken the criticism very personally.

Most people agreed that the casting of the four main characters was spot on, with special mention being made of Matthew Lillard’s scarily accurate portrayal of Shaggy. However, some ‘Buffy’ fans seem to consider ‘Scooby Doo’ to be a personal insult to them and to Joss Whedon and remain ferociously hostile towards the film and its sequel.

I think this is a perfectly decent film that actually could have been really good. Proof of this can been seen in the deleted scenes featured on the DVD. Had these had been kept in the film I think it would have been much better. It is what is: a big, loud, dumb, live-action version of an affectionately remembered kid’s cartoon. Where it falls down slightly is that it gets trapped between two stools. It can’t quite decide if it wants to appeal to adults who might be attracted to it because they have fond memories of the cartoon from their childhoods or simply go straight for the kid’s market. In the final analysis, it doesn’t quite get the balance right. I must admit that I was a fan of ‘Scooby Doo’ when I was young and I like both Gellar and Matthew Lillard, so I am already biased towards it. I will say that the farting scene bores me senseless. Farting is no doubt hilariously funny, if you happen to be five-years-old. After that the humour of it does start to wear off a little bit and this particular scene seems to go on and on and on interminably.

As it is, the film is still absolutely fine in its own big and stupid way. I particularly like the fact that it plays on Freddie Prinze Jr’s supposed vacuous self-absorption and arrogance, which suggests that he is a lot smarter than some people give him credit for. In the end, it’s just a fun film. I have an enormous capacity to watch films like this and I enjoyed it. There is no point expecting a cinematic classic. For goodness sake’s, it is ‘Scooby Doo’!

SCOOBY DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED (2004)

The second ‘Scooby Doo’ film went on general release in America in March 2004. It failed to perform as well as the studio had anticipated, but still took $181 million at the box office. However, with a production budget thought to have been as high as $80 million and with a box office take $100 million short of the first film, it was deemed in some quarters to have been a flop. To say that ‘Scooby Doo 2’ was a box office disaster, as many have claimed, is, I think, stretching the truth just a little bit. Using the weird ‘double the budget’ rule of thumb, it at least broke even (before the DVD sales are added to the equation).

Gellar was very quick to announce that she would not be involved in a third film. She also seemed very half-hearted during her promotional duties, happier to enthuse about her time in Japan and how she was really excited about ‘The Grudge’. Subsequently, she has been very specific about saying that she was contractually obligated to make a second ‘Scooby Doo’ film, but now that she no longer has a commitment to a TV show she has much greater freedom to pick and choose her film roles, allowing her to pursue more off-beat, quirky projects that really interest her. However, she did fly over to Britain to attend the London premiere, which I think is the first time she had ever attended a film premiere outside of America.

What do I think of ‘Scooby Doo 2’? In truth, it has very little to recommend it. All we get is one noisy, special effect laden set piece after another. The first ‘Scooby Doo’ at least made an attempt at some character development, but this one dispenses with that completely. Matthew Lillard was great fun to watch in the first film, but he does become a little bit irritating here at times. Gellar was able to successfully tap into the comedy opportunities presented in the first film by having Daphne be desperate to be strong and independent but end up being constantly hapless. It was a deliberate reverse play on her Buffy persona. In this second film she is simply turned into Buffy-lite without the great writing to back it up. It isn’t a particular good film, but it’s harmless fun and I still like it. What can I say?

THE GRUDGE (2004)

When I read some of the bad reviews that the two ‘Scooby Doo’ films got, or even ‘Harvard Man’, a film that I rate very highly but readily admit is an acquired taste, I can understand the negative reaction these films inspire in some people. When I read the shocking reviews ‘The Grudge’ received I am absolutely mystified. As ever, there were a few good reviews, but some reviewers dismissed the film as a worthless piece of garbage. Gellar came in for a lot of criticism for her performance; one American newspaper reviewer going as far as to say that it was probably the single worst performance in the entire history of filmmaking. That comment says more about the critic than it does about Gellar’s acting skills, but even so.

Even Roger Ebert, who has been supportive of Gellar’s films in the past, considers ‘The Grudge’ to be one of the worst ten films of 2004. I don’t agree with this, but fair enough, it’s his opinion. However, in his review he claims that the non-linear timeline employed in the narrative is utterly impossible to follow. How a film critic and writer of Ebert’s experience can say this is beyond me. There had been rumours that the non-linear timeline would be dispensed with in this remake because western audiences would find it too complicated. I was relieved when this proved not to be the case, although it has been somewhat simplified from the original. It’s an integral part of the film and it is not difficult to follow.

Gellar was clearly enthusiastic and her apparent excitement about the film was obviously genuine. She was tireless in promoting it, attending premieres in Los Angeles, New York, London, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Sitges (Spain) and Almere (Holland), as well as being a guest of honour at the first Dubai International Film Festival, intended to promote dialogue between Muslim and Judeo-Christian cultures through the medium of the Arts. Hundreds of articles appeared in newspapers and magazines and Gellar was a guest on numerous chat shows and entertainment programmes. The promotion officially began in July 2004 when she and Jason Behr made an appearance at ComicCon in San Diego for a Q&A session.

‘The Grudge’ had a tiny (in comparative terms) $10 million production budget. Sony’s ‘best scenario’ prediction was for a $15 million opening weekend, a total domestic gross of $45 million, and whatever they could generate oversees. The film was released in America towards the end of October 2004, timed to coincide with Halloween, taking $39 million in its opening weekend. Its final box office take was $190 million. This is an enormous return on such a small budget and makes ‘The Grudge’ one of the most financially successful films of 2004. It is also the second most successful American film ever opened exclusively by a female lead.

To actually concentrate on the film itself, I thought it was superb. I realise this is will not come as much of a surprise. It was always going to be extremely unlikely that I wouldn’t like it. Overall, I do think the original is perhaps marginally better. However, this new American/Japanese version is, I honestly think, a really good film. An extended "Director's Cut" was released on DVD in America. This is not actually substantially different to the 'original' cut. However, fifteen deleted scenes are included as extras. If some of these had made it into the finished film I genuinely believe it might have been a bona-fide classic. If nothing else, it would have helped to flesh out the relationship between Karen and Doug (Gellar and Jason Behr) and added an extra human layer to the story.

In terms of the acting, I have no problem with any of the performances. Ryo Ishibashi, in particular, is quietly impressive in the role of Detective Nakagawa. As for Gellar, some of the criticism is clearly just borne out of dislike of her. Other reviewers seem to misinterpret her performance simply because it doesn’t slap the audience across the face, screaming, “check out my awesome acting talents!” Instead, she gives exactly the performance the film actually demands. This is an ensemble piece and although Gellar plays the central character she is not on screen for very long. If anything, this indicates her confidence as an actor because she doesn’t feel the need to barnstorm and try to over-balance the film in her direction. She might not be a brilliant actor, but she is clearly more adept than she is sometimes given credit for and the frequent claims that she cannot act are patently absurd.

“I don't understand Method actors. To me, Method seems like channelling. I don’t want to be thinking about my dog dying, I want to be the character. In that sense, it’s simple to me to become that character. I get paid to act. If I have to play a homeless person, I’m bathing that morning. When I had to play Buffy crawling out of a grave, not only did I shower every morning, but sometimes I showered at lunch and reapplied all the dirt. And when I wrapped, I showered before I went home.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar: Movieline May 2002

FUTURE PROJECTS

Gellar has five films that are known to be in various stages of production or pre-production. In early 2005 she spent three months in Texas filming a supernatural thriller called ‘Revolver’ (a title that will have to be changed as a result of the Guy Ritchie film). It co-stars Sam Shepard and was directed by Asif Kapadia, the acclaimed English-born writer and director of the award-winning Indian film ‘The Warrior’. There has been no announcement about a release date but preview showings have taken place in America.

She is presently filming ‘Southland Tales’, the much-delayed new film by Richard Kelly, writer and director of the brilliant cult favourite ‘Donnie Darko’. The somewhat idiosyncratic cast includes Seann William Scott (recently seen in ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’), American wrestler turned actor The Rock, Kevin Smith (writer and director of ‘Clerks’, ‘Mallrats’ and ‘Chasing Amy’), Christopher Lambert, Miranda Richardson and Justin Timberlake. The film, which Kelly has described as mixing sci-fi, drama, comedy and thriller elements with musical interludes, apparently has an almost impossibly complex multi-thread narrative. It is due for release sometime in 2006 and will be preceded by six graphic novels written by Kelly.

I very much doubt that a film such as this will be huge commercial success. Whether such an idiosyncratically ambitious project is deemed to be an artistic success remains to be seen.

‘Happily N’Ever After’ is an animated feature based on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. The main voices, provided by Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr and Sigourney Weaver, were recorded two or three years ago, but the animation has taken nearly four years to complete. The film is scheduled for release in America at the end of 2005.

Gellar is also signed to play the lead role in a film version of Melissa Banks’ novel ‘A Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing’. In a recent interview she said that she expected filming to begin in 2006 but intimated that she had one or two other projects that might happen before then, although she did not elaborate on the details. It is known that she recently made personal visits to a couple of big New York publishing houses and it is rumoured that she was looking to buy the rights to several books to be adapted for films. It has been known for some time that she has plans to produce films in the future.

Her final announced project is ‘Alice’, a film that Wes Craven was once signed to. Based on a computer game, it tells the story of Alice Liddell as an adult, now confined to a mental institution and forced to return to Wonderland, a place that has turned into a hellish nightmare landscape. There is no start date for filming but Marcus Nispel (responsible for the recent ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ remake) has been signed to direct it.

I have no great interest in animated films in general but everything else here sounds very interesting to me and I think the claims of some ‘Buffy’ fans that Gellar is “washed up” are grossly premature.