What’s up, BIG-NOSE?
As a kid, I always thought this movie was great because of the gigantic nose on Martin’s face during the film. Some part of me thought that he was dying (don’t ask) because of that nose and that he was super-sensitive during the film because he was dying. These are all coherent thoughts coming from an 11-year old kid. Later in life, somewhere around college, I finally realized that Roxanne was based loosely off of Cyrano de Bergerac, which was basically a man too ugly to find true love and has to find love through a beautiful man. It’s sad, tragic in some ways, but says a lot about life and how society treats unusual people.
Martin’s translation of the story was nearly perfect. Of course, like the main character in the story, his character (Charlie) sports an unusually large nose. Charlie is smart and a damn good fire chief. He hopes to make a small town’s fire department into a very capable and responsible group of people. When Martin’s character runs into Roxanne, a new resident of the town and an astronomer, he falls head over heels for her. Regretfully, he falls into the friend zone as his new fireman hire, Chris, runs into Roxanne before Charlie can tell her how he feels. Chris, who is not intelligent and nervous in front of women, depends on Charlie’s wonderful poetic nature to woo and capture the heart of Roxanne. You get the picture…
Following in the footsteps of every 80s films, sorry to ruin this one, everything turns out well in the end (this formula doesn’t apply to The Empire Strikes Back). The unique part of this film comes in two different pieces. The first piece is the wonderful writing that Martin puts together to make it intelligent. He doesn’t simply do a straight translation of the former story, he adds an 80s pitch to it, with a dash of Martin humor. It’s like watching a movie with Steve Martin (as I can only imagine) and Martin being able to explain the fine details of what’s going on. You will know as soon as he opens his mouth that he’s more intelligent and far more interesting than any other character. He is literally a freak alone in a small town of followers. He uses his wit and intelligence to survive, because his looks can’t do it for him. Martin does well through dialogue in establishing this from the very beginning (the tennis fight is hilarious, as one of those guys is a future SNL gentleman).
The second piece of the film that makes this work really well is that all loose ends at the end of the film are tied firmly together. Most 80s films could only concentrate on a main set of characters or character. Here you have three-to-four different stories going on. Each story is tied up perfectly and with no device included. Martin wrote a very deep set of characters that had their own failures to overcome. Charlie had his own, Chris couldn’t talk to women, Roxanne was looking for love, the fire department was completely a mess, the mayor was out of touch with his people and Shelley Duvall’s Dixie…. she just needed to keep drinking (not sure of her outcome, maybe she was a device). Anyway, very three-dimensional characters that fit the bill perfectly for a romantic comedy.
Are there any downers? Well, Chris isn’t a likable character. At the beginning he is charming. You understand his paranoia and his ways. At the end of the movie he’s just an a-hole. His character needed a better conclusion if anything. It just didn’t seem right. With that said, look for an underused Damon Wayans to crop up in the fire department.
In the end, you get a very lovely romantic comedy that you can still watch in 2009. It has legs and surprisingly Steve Martin still looks like that (sans the nose) and acts like that in his more recent films (Shop Girl may not count because I simply can’t recall what that is about. I still can’t get Claire Danes’ ass out of my mind. What was that movie about again?). Roxanne is witty, light in some areas and worth your time and attention. Martin at his best, although I do hear that L.A. Story was damn good.
Does it look as good as a normal nose…. err…. Blu-ray?
Watching this on a 1080p, 120mhz was jarring. It looked better than the DVD, then the film, then the 80s. It was simply stunning. A while back, I was fortunate enough to talk to Rich Marty who is the VP for Blu-ray over Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. He described to me the process of taking a film and converting it to Blu-ray. It takes time and precision, and the patience of a dog waiting for a cracker sitting on its nose. Columbia and SPHE could not have done a better job with a 1987 comedic gem. They really transferred it well and made sure fans of the film could re-capture the love of it.
With that said, there are no special features. For such a critically acclaimed film you must include something. Commentary from Martin himself would have brought tons of praise from this reviewer. I would pay money that I don’t have to see that happen. Regretfully, nothing here.