Century
Hotel (2001)
Watching "Century Hotel," you get the feeling that
you've seen this all before. David Weaver's script is
set only in one room, a single hotel room, yet spans
the 20th century with stories that take place as early
as the 20's and as late as New Year's Eve, 1999. This
device has been used in David Lynch's "Hotel Room" quite
effectively, as well in countless other films. I guess
it's time for a genre called "hotel room" films. Weaver's
idea to set a story on New Year's Eve, 1999, isn't very
original either. That was done to death back in the
90's.
So with all this overt plagiarism in the set-up and
the setting going on, the stories must be phenomenal.
They are not, really. Weaver seems hell-bent on giving
all of the seven (that's right seven!) stories he tells
here a "Twilight Zone" ending. It's as if he went to
the "Tale From the Crypt" School of Irony in Writing.
Every one of these stories is so insistent on having
a twist ending that, by the seventh time, you just wish
something totally weird would happen.
Here are the plots. Let's see if I can remember all
7:
1) A woman marries for money in the 20's. A revolutionary
breaks in her room and they have sex. Her husband kills
her. A mild rip off of "Born Yesterday" without the
intelligence and retaining only the sex really.
2) A man returns from overseas at the end of WWII
to meet his best buddy and fiance. This one has a mild
amount of originality to it but insists on ending badly.
3) A Chinese woman is brought to America to marry
the most important Asian American in town. This one
has a Asian man as a 40's gumshoe. It's supposed to
be amusing that he's Asian but talks like he fell out
of a Ramond Chandler novel. Sigh.
4) A man hires a hooker and after having sex the two
realize that something special has passed between them.
They decide to meet each year at the same time. A blatant
rip-off of "Same Time Next Year."
5) A 70's rock star with agoraphobia is taken advantage
of by a maid who is also a songwriter. It's no "Almost
Famous."
6) A bookish man is looking for his estranged wife
but finds solace in the hotel detective's company instead.
A "Grifters" gone awry story.
7) A girl with a death wish meets a boy she knows
from a cyber chat room on New Year's 1999 so that they
may both kill themselves.
The film is well acted by a plethora of Canadian actors.
Weaver may have done better to cast the same actors
in each scene, but he does not tell the stories chronologically
so this wouldn't have worked. Instead, he opts to cut
around from story to story at his whim and we are left
with seven stories that are so short and so typical
that we don't care about any of them. Once any one of
them gains any dramatic or comedic momentum, Weaver
is clipping away, force- feeding another story to us.
Anyone who has ever been infuriated by the way television
soap operas are cut will understand how irritating this
film can be at times.
"Century Hotel" looks good. It is well made. But,
really, it has absolutely no reason to exist. Anything
that we see here has been done somewhere else, and usually
much better.
Note:
In the Q&A after the film, Weaver mentioned that the
number 720, which is the room number all the stories
take place in, was selected because it represents "seven
stories from the 20th century."
The actress from the 1920's story also plays the girl
in 1999.
This Film Reviewed
from the 2001 Austin Film festival!
|
Report
Card
Script:
C-
Acting: B+
Cinematography\Lighting: C
Special Effects\Make Up: B
Music: C-
Final
Grade: C-
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