No Such Thing (film)
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''No Such Thing'' (previously titled ''Monster'', is, Skrímsli) is a 2001 supernatural
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Hal Hartley Hal Hartley (born November 3, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and composer who became a key figure in the American independent film movement of the 1980s and '90s. He is best known for his films '' The Unbelievable Tr ...
. It tells the story of Beatrice (
Sarah Polley Sarah Ellen Polley (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian actress,Howell, Peter (September 24, 1999)"Nobody's Starlet: Toronto's Sarah Polley is Only 20 but already a veteran actor so secure in her craft she can thumb her nose at Hollywood" ''Tor ...
), a journalist whose fiancé is killed by a monster in Iceland. The story is based very loosely on the Anglo-Saxon epic '' Beowulf''. It was screened in the
Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...
section at the May
2001 Cannes Film Festival The 54th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 20 May 2001. Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullmann was the Jury President. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film ''The Son's Room'' by Nanni Moretti. The festival opened with '' ...
.


Plot

Beatrice (
Sarah Polley Sarah Ellen Polley (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian actress,Howell, Peter (September 24, 1999)"Nobody's Starlet: Toronto's Sarah Polley is Only 20 but already a veteran actor so secure in her craft she can thumb her nose at Hollywood" ''Tor ...
) is a young woman working in a television network under a woman known only as The Boss ( Helen Mirren). She receives a recording from her fiancé Jim, who has been sent as part of a small production crew to Iceland to investigate a Monster that lives there. Determined to find her fiancé, Beatrice convinces her boss to send her to Iceland, but her plane crashes. She is the only survivor and, in order to walk again, undergoes an extremely painful, radical surgery. As she recovers, she befriends Dr. Anna (
Julie Christie Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1940) is a British actress. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, Christie is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She ...
), who helps her travel to the remote village where the monster lives. After cajoling Beatrice into drinking herself into unconsciousness, the villagers strip her and leave her as an offering to the Monster himself (
Robert John Burke Robert John Burke (born September 12, 1960) is an American actor known for his roles in '' RoboCop 3'' (1993), '' Tombstone'' (1993), and '' Thinner'' (1996). During the 2000s Burke became well known for his portrayal of Mickey Gavin on '' Rescue ...
), a foul-mouthed, alcoholic beast old enough to remember human ancestors crawling from the seas. Beatrice shows him no real fear, although the Monster tells her he has killed her friends and might kill her, too. He tells her that he wants to die, but is indestructible. In an effort to force Beatrice to try to kill him, he proves that he killed Jim and his crew. She shoots him twice and he reacts in obvious pain, but heals almost instantly. He tells her of a mad scientist, Dr. Artaud (
Baltasar Kormákur Baltasar Kormákur Baltasarsson (born 27 February 1966) is an Icelandic actor, theater and film director, and film producer. He is best known for directing the films '' 101 Reykjavík'', '' The Sea'', '' A Little Trip to Heaven'', '' Contraband ...
, presumably named for Antonin Artaud), who had discovered a way to kill him, but Dr. Artaud had been "taken away in a strait jacket." Beatrice offers to help him find Dr. Artaud if the Monster comes with her to New York and promises not to kill anyone while he is there. In New York the Monster becomes a celebrity, with the Boss staging a media frenzy as they search for Dr. Artaud. They find that he is working for the government. While Beatrice revels in the attention, the Monster remains miserable and drunk. The Boss makes a deal with a government scientist to study the Monster and he's rushed away by army guards who mislead him into believing he is going to see Dr. Artaud. Instead, he is subjected to torturous experiments as the scientists try to discover the key to his indestructibility, one of them noting that he can't seem to tolerate new information. One of those experiments involves the Monster being ridiculed and beaten on the street to study his behavior. The Monster holds true to his promise to Beatrice and does not kill anyone. Meanwhile, Beatrice meets Dr. Artaud by chance. With Margaret ( Annika Peterson), a remorseful former coworker of Beatrice's, they hatch a plan to escape back to Iceland with the Monster. They make their escape, but are pursued by the government, who fears the Monster and Artaud might fall into the wrong hands. Artaud builds a machine that will kill the Monster. Beatrice bids the Monster a tearful farewell, and kisses him goodbye. As the machine starts, the army storms their hideout. As the lights flicker on and off and the machine moves the Monster into place (in a process mirroring Beatrice's surgery), the Monster and Beatrice face each other one last time. Her face flickers in his vision for several minutes before the screen blackens.


Cast

*
Sarah Polley Sarah Ellen Polley (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian actress,Howell, Peter (September 24, 1999)"Nobody's Starlet: Toronto's Sarah Polley is Only 20 but already a veteran actor so secure in her craft she can thumb her nose at Hollywood" ''Tor ...
as Beatrice *
Robert John Burke Robert John Burke (born September 12, 1960) is an American actor known for his roles in '' RoboCop 3'' (1993), '' Tombstone'' (1993), and '' Thinner'' (1996). During the 2000s Burke became well known for his portrayal of Mickey Gavin on '' Rescue ...
as Monster * Helen Mirren as The Boss *
Julie Christie Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1940) is a British actress. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, Christie is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She ...
as Dr. Anna *
Baltasar Kormákur Baltasar Kormákur Baltasarsson (born 27 February 1966) is an Icelandic actor, theater and film director, and film producer. He is best known for directing the films '' 101 Reykjavík'', '' The Sea'', '' A Little Trip to Heaven'', '' Contraband ...
as Dr. Artaud * Annika Peterson as Margaret * Erica Gimpel as Judy


Production

For Hartley, writing and directing ''No Such Thing'' was like coming "full circle for a filmmaker": early in his career he had written a script for a horror film, later revised to be a vampire film; that movie was never made, but ''No Such Thing'' mirrors its ideas. It was shot in Iceland and New York City during September and October 2000. It was the first Hartley production for a major company, MGM/United Artists, and Francis Ford Coppola was one of the executive producers. The film was ill-received at the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
, after which the studio demanded the movie be recut. Hartley refused, and Coppola supported him. These events, and the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
, complicated the relation with the studio. The release, in early 2002, was a low-key affair; after two weeks, only three screens showed the film. It went to home video within months. In 2012, the film's screenplay was made available on Hal Hartley's website in a book that also included the screenplays for '' The Book of Life'' and '' The Girl From Monday''.


Critical reception

''No Such Thing'' was poorly received by critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 30% based on 43 reviews with an average rating of 5.03/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Stocked with talented stars but lacking any clear idea of what to do with them, ''No Such Thing'' is ultimately far too uneven to recommend." According to
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which sampled 21 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, the film received "generally unfavorable reviews". Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film one star, saying "''No Such Thing'' is inexplicable, shapeless, dull. It doesn't even rise to entertaining badness." In the assessment of E. L. Risden, ''No Such Thing'' is 'a marvelous and under-appreciated cinematic revision of the Anglo-Saxon epic'; 'the satire of ''No Such Thing'' focuses not on our remnant fear of traditional monsters, but on our numb-headed failure to fear the functional monsters our large and exploitative corporations can become—and on those of us who allow them (by watching them or paying them or simply not resisting them) to do so.'E. L. Risden, 'A Corporate Neo-''Beowulf'': Ready or Not, Here we Come', in ''Corporate Medievalism'', Studies in Medievalism, 21 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2012), pp. 49--56 (pp. 49 and 50).


References


Notes


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External links

* * * * {{Beowulf 2001 films 2001 horror films 2000s fantasy comedy-drama films American monster movies Films based on Beowulf Films directed by Hal Hartley American fantasy comedy-drama films 2000s Icelandic-language films English-language Icelandic films 2000s English-language films American avant-garde and experimental films 2000s avant-garde and experimental films United Artists films Icelandic fantasy comedy-drama films Icelandic avant-garde and experimental films 2001 multilingual films American multilingual films Icelandic multilingual films 2000s American films