Accidental Love
Flirting with off-screen disaster...
When a film is shelved for years despite a big-name director and bigger-name cast, there’s usually a good reason – witness Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper’s widely derided period romance Serena, which finally slunk out to a limited release last year. Semi-political satire Accidental Love is a particularly interesting case, because its disastrous shoot came directly before director David O. Russell began an odds-defying Hollywood comeback. The Fighter kicked off a streak that would see him land an Oscar nominee in all four acting fields – for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle – two years running, a feat last accomplished in 1981.
Filmed and never completed in 2008 yet somehow still 30 minutes too long, Accidental Love is an initially promising blend of offkilter premise, spiky performances and Russell’s characteristic brand of ensemble mania. Small-town waitress Alice ( Jessica Biel) accidentally gets a nail shot through her head, and doesn’t have the money or insurance to get it removed, leaving her with mood swings and the constant threat of fatal haemorrhage. She heads to D.C. and joins forces with a sweet-but-spineless congressman ( Jake Gyllenhaal) to lobby for universal emergency healthcare.
Given its chaotic birth – key scenes were reportedly never shot, actors and crew walked off set over guild violations –it’s no shock that the film is all over the place. Alice’s nonchalant doctors cutting her loose mid-surgery is an exaggerated but on-point skewering of the pitiless US health system, while Gyllenhaal’s plainly having fun playing a budding embodiment of cutthroat Washington politics. But as the stakes get more cartoonish and the set pieces more haphazard, the atmosphere of relentless frenzy – familiar from I Heart Huckabees – becomes exhausting. The film circles back on itself like a joke without a punchline, the lack of control behind the camera becoming obvious in front of it. THE VERDICT Though disowned by its director, this isn’t a car crash – Biel and Gyllenhaal are game enough to make the OTT tone work, until the narrative holes become too gaping to ignore. › Certificate 15 Director David O. Russell (as Stephen Greene) Starring Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Marsden, Tracey Morgan, Catherine Keener Screenplay Kristin Gore, Matthew Silverstein, Dave Jeser Distributor Arrow Running time 101 mins