Arizona Dream (1993)

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Axel (Johnny Depp) is a young man who comes to Arizona to be his uncle Leo's (Jerry Lewis) best man in his wedding, and stays on to sell cars at the local family Cadillac dealership.

There, Axel and buddy Paul (Vincent Gallo) meet up with Grace (Lili Taylor) and her weird stepmother Elaine (Faye Dunaway). Grace and Elaine hate each other, living in a big house in the country and arguing continuously. Axel eventually falls for Elaine, and is drawn into her weird little world, where she dreams of flying, and moving to Papua New Guinea. Grace has her own set of mental quirks- she worships turtles and wants to die so she can come back as one. Paul fancies himself a serious actor, one good scene has him recreate the crop duster scene from "North by Northwest," on stage at a local talent contest. Millie (Paulina Porizkova) is given nothing to do as Leo's very young fiancee.

We have all these weird characters in a weird little comedy. There are funny scenes. Grace tries to hang herself with pantyhose from a second floor balcony, and bungees up and down as Axel tries to save her. Axel, Grace, Elaine, and Paul play a hilarious game of footsie at a dinner table. Grace begins wandering around the house playing the accordion. Axel and Elaine begin building flying machines, trying to fulfill Dunaway's girlhood dream. The screen fills with weird special effects and tons of magical realist images. The Eskimo prologue, a fish that swims in the sky- really interesting stuff. About halfway through the film, everything takes an ugly turn. Two characters play a game of Russian Roulette. One character overdoses on pills, guilt-ridden because they drove the car in an accident that killed people. Eventually, not a whole lot of plot happens. Instead, the film becomes obsessed with suicide, wallowing in the characters' unhappiness to the point that I almost removed the COMEDY sticker from the video case and wrote MANIC DEPRESSIVE on it. The cast, especially Taylor, is good- too good. I felt like they really understood their respective characters and the director's overall vision but it's too bad they did not let the viewer in on it. I felt undermined by the cast and crew, and could not wait for the film to end. The infamous final scene is a confusing ending to a confused film.

Stats:
(1993) 142 min. (*) out of five stars
-Directed by Emir Kusturica
-Screenplay by David Atkins, Story by David Atkins & Emir Kusturica
-Cast: Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Vincent Gallo, Lili Taylor, Faye Dunaway, Paulina Porizkova, Michael J. Pollard, Candyce Mason, Alexia Rane, Polly du Pont Noonan, Ann Schulman, Patricia O'Grady, James R. Wilson
(R)