All I Can Do Is Try…

I started writing a look into this film when I first saw it, but that descended into a rant about the reality TV and instant success culture – something that I hate – so I didn’t publish it.  So here’s my second attempt.

Anyone who has ever tried to find out anything about this film, named simply Guy, by searching on the internet will not have had an easy ride.  I understand why.  Back in 1997 when this film was released the internet wasn’t as far reaching as it is now, and movie review sites as well as personal pages and blogs were not as plentiful.  You would also have come up against the problem of the title of this film.  “Guy” is a common word, and this isn’t the only film to have featured that word in the title.  By searching for “Guy, 1997″, up comes stuff about The Cable Guy, The Wrong Guy, Smart Guy and Mr. Nice Guy, all of which came out in 1997.  Wading through all of the crap, you do get to find more than just the IMDB page about the film.  It is out there, somewhere.

The main reason that I wanted to see this film is because a certain rather attractive man is the lead actor.  In fact, he’s pretty much the only actor in it, if you don’t take the “Camera” as a person (which it is).  This film wasn’t available in Britain.  I searched every DVD place online that I could think of, including Love Film before taking a peek at eBay.  I ended up importing the DVD from Sweden.  One of the nice things about that, is it has a lower rating in Sweden than it got in the US or UK.  So, knowing little about the film except the brief synopsis that I got from IMDB I plucked up the courage to watch it once it had arrived.

Now, I really do hate reality TV, so I was kind of expecting some self-indulged heap of ass-kissing crap from this film.  And I kept reminding myself that I was watching it for just about the most shallow reason available: I adore D’Onofrio as an actor.  I wondered from the outset whether his very special, and rather unique, talent as an actor – that of being able to make characters genuinely human – would be lost in the film with this weak premise.  I was wrong.  It wasn’t lost, and I’m so glad that my totally shallow reason for wanting to see this film is the reason that I saw it.

If you’ve seen The Truman Show, I recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Guy.  The Truman Show is a feel good, pretty happy looking film about reality TV and the people in it.  Guy is a far more realistic look at it, what it does to people’s lives, their relationships and even their sanity.  It’s an hour and a half worth of looking at some of the darkest parts of humans and realising that we all do these things even if we would never admit it, ever.  It’s the most uncomfortable film that I’ve ever watched.  And the reason for that is because it’s so human.

I do wonder if back in 1997 anyone had the slightest idea that reality TV would move on so much that we wouldn’t want to see real “humans” in our reality TV, instead we’d want to see these people who have no feelings and no characters and then spend the rest of their time complaining about an invasion of privacy.  It’s so sad to see that when children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, so many of them say that they want to get famous through reality TV.  Well seriously, someone make these people sit down and watch Guy, to show them the consequences of laying yourself entirely bare to what could be the whole world.

At the outset Guy is only barely holding on to what he has, as he’s rather the lad when it comes to personality and choices.  When the Camera – identified only as “Camera” because she won’t give her name – enters his life he can’t hold on to anything anymore.  He does lose, quite literally, everything.  It’s the cruel price that you pay for exposing everything about yourself.  Some people will look at the character of Guy and hate him.  They’ll see him as a shallow loser who did this in the pursuit of fame and vanity.  The way it’s acted does make you feel like that to an extent. And that’s what I mean about making characters human.  The character of Guy makes you mad, and then shortly after that can make you feel so sad.  It’s one of the few characters in some form of fiction that’s made me want smack him square across the face, yet hold him while he cries because inevitably he will have to cry when he realises what he’s done.

Just a regular Guy.

Guy is a human being, he does things that everyone does but that most people are too afraid to admit to and that’s why it’s so difficult to watch.  Yet, so many people would do exactly what he did and allow someone into their life in the same way without thinking about the consequences.  Of course, there are things in the film that many people wouldn’t do, but then Guy is under an immense amount of pressure and everything that has happened to him has been so fast that he hasn’t had a moment to process it.  It hasn’t sunk in.  D’Onofrio acts that very well.

The fact that the character you’re seeing it through is a “Camera”, with no name and no feelings is an interesting concept and really does play on the usual idea of a narrator in a book.  Everything that Guy says is addressed to the “Camera” and that makes it very personal to the viewer because it’s as though, when he looks into the camera he’s addressing the viewer.  Without the embodiment of that third person there it’s very difficult to remember that there is a person behind the camera to whom he has become attached.  The omnipotent narrator is removed from everything and is never involved in the emotional side of it.  This “Camera” gets dragged in even if it’s the last thing she wanted, and by the end is very emotionally involved and can’t let go.

Watching this film is like watching someone destroy themselves and you can’t do anything about it.  It’s almost like watching someone being ambushed on CCTV, except Guy walked right into this one and that’s what makes it all the more difficult to stomach.  We have the joy of being removed from the situation so it’s not happening to us.  If Guy could see himself he probably wouldn’t do these things.  But, Guy’s human, and he can’t see himself.  Neither can any of us.  How many of us have come out of a bad situation and, with hindsight, wished we hadn’t fucked it up in quite the same way?  All of us, I’d say.  We all do, say and feel things that we’d never admit to, wish we could change and can apologise for.  For Guy these things are on video and they’ll never be removed.  Even if he apologised for them it wouldn’t make it any better.

The film, overall, is a wonderful little insight into humanity.  Even more than that, it goes deeply into what society is willing to take from people before simply discarding them, leaving them blackened and broken in the gutter.  I really think that people should watch this movie and take account of their actions and beliefs when it comes to other people.  The film is not only about humanity and us as individuals, but also about judgement.  We all judge people based on snippets of reality, and we’re all quick to judge when someone makes a mistake.  What we seem to forget is that, as totally fallible humans, we’d make exactly the same ones.

Hope Davis plays the woman behind the camera.  Because you see and hear so little of her it’s very difficult to form an opinion about her.  A few times though, I felt very cold towards her.  Obviously we’re meant to feel for Guy, but it was rather jarring to see one person laying themselves totally bare, while they person they were doing it for stayed so guarded it was like they may as well have not existed.

Vincent D’Onofrio plays Guy.  He plays the guy we’re all most afraid of admitting that we are.  The real selling point of the film is just how human Guy is.  He’s believable, and because of the way he behaves we do want to break his nose, then hug him and tell him it will be alright.  I’ve seen a lot of reality TV (who hasn’t, now?), and no-one is as human as Guy.  I like Robert Goren in Criminal Intent, but if I had to choose a role of D’Onofrio’s that everyone should see because it’s so good, then it would be Guy.  If anyone else had played this part, it would have sucked.  For a lot of women, Guy is probably a man that they’ve seen – the one who tries too hard at times, and not hard enough when it really counts.  He’s human.  He’s a heartbreakingly portrayed average Guy.

Tags: Featured Article, Films, Guy, Movies, Vincent D'Onofrio, Waxing Lyrical

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