Bland 'Mumford' shows little air

Lawrence Kasdan, in his time since leaving the University, has focused his directing career - unlike the epic adventure stories he wrote for "Return of the Jedi" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - on small stories where maybe nothing much happens but, as a wise musician once said, a lot goes on. He's done quite well for himself with these tales thus far: "The Big Chill" is the kind of movie your parents force you to watch because they love it so much and you should too, while "Grand Canyon" garnered critical praise if not box office success.

Now Kasdan has made "Mumford," a small-town affair through and through. It's a tale of the town of Mumford's people and their idyll-shattering psychological problems that they air in the presence of the conveniently named Doc Mumford (Loren Dean). L

Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures Doc Mumford (Loren Dean) and Alfre Woodard take a moment to pause in University alum Lawrence Kasdan's "Mumford."

ike Kasdan's previous work, there is a protagonist (Mumford) but he tends to be overshadowed by the greater ensemble of characters that has been assembled.

Unfortunately for "Mumford," the overshadowing plays more like a total eclipse of the brain. There is little in the movie that is compelling, interesting or, dare I say it, comedic, as "Mumford" is being marketed as a comedy.

Oh, sure, there are the usual revelations. The rich kid is lonely, the fat pharmacist has sexual hangups that make it impossible for any woman to fulfill him, the criminal lawyer seeks therapy for the sake of seeking and is summarily expelled from Doc's office. And - it is no crime in revealing this, as the trailers for "Mumford" already, foolishly, have - Doc himself is revealed to be a shyster, a fraud, a capital gainer at the expense of others.

This not-so-shocking stunner is let loose midway through the film, but it's almost anti-climactic since practically every audience member knows it going in. We're treated to the obligatory sob story about why Doc changed his identity, left his old life behind and became a literal quack. Kasdan encourages us to care and root him on in his quest for Sofie (Hope Davis), one of his patients, as we care and root on the remainder of the cast as they find love and happiness with each other: Skip Skipperton (an unusually restrained Jason Lee), Lily (Alfre Woodard), Nessa (Zooey Deschanel), Martin (Jason Ritter), Henry (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and Althea (Mary McDonnell).

Some of these people are mildly fun, although it's clear that Kasdan was reaching for a way to keep us from walking out on the movie by handing each character a special, carefully planned out quirk. One makes a surrogate companion sextoy, while another is obsessed with magazines.

There is a light in this morass of boredom, though: Pharmacist Henry has old-fashioned fantasies that seem to take place when men were big burly drifters and women were buxom and lived in boarding houses, ripe for the taking. We're made privy to these and they are at once laughably good-natured and as prim as pornography can be, amusing and providing a much-needed break from day-to-day life in Mumford.

Dean and Davis do nothing to save the film. Dean has spent nearly ten years trying to become a true leading man, failing to live up to promise after "Billy Bathgate." "Mumford" is not going to save him, not by a long shot. He's pleasant enough in demeanor and face, to be sure, but nothing more than that. He's like a blank page. There's nothing going on behind his eyes that we can see, there's nothing to draw us into his world and his motivations. Davis, meanwhile, whines and wanders her way through "Mumford" pausing every now and then to look particularly pathetic. Even when she's trying to convey elation, she looks like she's five seconds away from complete collapse. Granted, her character is somewhat ill, but by the end of the film she's supposedly feeling "one hundred percent better." Evidence? Nil.

"Mumford" is, like its namesake small town, quaint and attractive in its way. But when it starts to become painfully clear that its citizens are probably overly dramatic and that the citizens outshine the hero to the point that he never was, never is and never will be the guy we want to see succeed, that's when it's time to close up shop.

"Mumford" commits the worst deadly sin of cinema: It is not entertainingly bad and it is not entertainingly good. The laughs are few, as are the tears. After so many wonderful movies, Kasdan has finally succeeded in making one that is squarely uninspired.

09-24-99