Alfie

Alfie (Director: Charles Shyer)

Director Charles Shyer has been doing lots of remakes in the past ten years. With former spouse Nancy Meyers producing, Shyer directed both Father of the Bride remakes with Steve Martin and produced Meyers' remake of The Parent Trap (starring our favorite recently-legal, Lindsay Lohan). Shyer's big misses include The Affair of the Necklace and I Love Trouble. He was a big part of "The Odd Couple" TV series.

And here's another remake from Shyer, from the 1966 Michael Caine vehicle (Caine's films are getting remade all over the place, last year's The Italian Job and 2000's Get Carter were also Caine originals), this time starring Jude Law (in his 3rd film of the fall). Law stars as Alfie Jenkins, a man who women love to get dumped by. The film is ultimately a character study (minimal plotting, heavy topics, a dominating performance) as Alfie talks to the audience, sharing with us his conflicts in dealing with women, lying to us and himself in many instances, but also being brutally honest most of the time.

Most of the episodic plot points revolve around his semi-girlfriends who want more from him but also know he's a no-good bastard. Marisa Tomei plays Julie, one of Alfie's saps who finally dumps him--therin creating a characteristic of Alfie to only want what he can't have. Omar Epps plays his best friend Marlon and Nia Long plays Marlon's girlfriend Lonette, and Alfie's flaws cause conflict in this relationship. Other key roles are filled out by Susan Sarandon as Liz, gorgeous Sienna Miller as Nikki, and a cameo from Jane Krakowski as one of Alfie's flings.

Jude Law has already proved that he's a fantastic actor, one of the best going in cinema today, and it's only a matter of if the material is good enough for him. Alfie is a difficult role. The man must guard his feelings constantly, and for an audience, give a glimmer of what he really feels without going overboard. This is one of Law's best performances, and even though it might be considered heresy in some circles considering that this movie isn't likely to garner any award attention and doesn't have the same sweep as the curiously beloved Cold Mountain, I prefer his performance here than to that. You can line this one right up with Gattaca and The Talented Mr. Ripley as Jude Law's best.

The movie? Very entertaining, actually. This is a movie where the performance is everything. If this were, say, Jason Biggs (who's likeable; not to disparage Biggs, necessarily) the movie would be very different and not nearly as enjoyable. I also don't have the baggage of having seen the original. It might have a hard time finding an audience, even though it's counterprogrammed to The Incredibles this weekend, since it's not exactly a true date movie.