Hackneyed twists and banal revelations

Norman Mailer fathered eight children before his death in 2007. If I told you that Blind was co-written by one of them and directed by another, would that give you hope it was a good movie?

Hold on. While it’s true sometimes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, in this case the fruit flies. Blind, directed by Michael Mailer from a script by John Buffalo Mailer and Diane Fisher, is a plodding and pedestrian affair, full of hackneyed twists and banal revelations that border on the unbelievable. Its drama is mellow, its eroticism uncharged. Wonders never start.

Dylan McDermott stars as Mark Dutchman, a businessman who is by turns as tender or as brutal as the screenplay requires. Busted in act one for insider trading, he goes to jail to await trial, while his wife, Suzanne (Demi Moore), gets community service. Specifically, she is assigned to read to Bill Oakland (Alec Baldwin), a blind literature professor whose broken heart makes him push away anyone who comes close. You know the type.

Of course, Suzanne and Bill will get off to a stormy start before bonding over – what? Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina? Identical views on the Oxford comma? It’s hard to say why they fall for each other except that the words in the script demand it.

Their story stumbles along to a score by a three-piece jazz ensemble, regardless of whether or not it fits the mood. Sudden prison violence, discussions of infidelity and erotic shaving scenes all progress to the same jaunty piano music.

Meanwhile, each of the main male characters has a subplot about a young protégé that goes nowhere. Which suggests that the rest of the movie goes somewhere, but that isn’t the case. You could strip all the secondary characters out, and all you’d notice was you didn’t have time to finish your popcorn. ∂1/2

Blind opens July 14 at the Carlton in Toronto.