Bodies, Rest and Motion takes its title from Newton’s first law of motion, the one that says a body at rest or in motion will remain that way unless acted upon by an outside force. Inertia is the more common name for this phenomenon, but it sounds much less like “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” a film to which this one owes a noticeable debt.
And inertia does not do justice to this film’s quirky, magnetic characters, even though the material consigns them to passivity much of the time. If anything, the film’s four central actors seem much too vibrant and alert to play people who have fallen so deeply into the doldrums. Marooned in Enfield, Ariz., and caught up in the aftermath of fading love affairs, they spend much of the story contemplating change and fearing the unknown. “When we got to Enfield, I dumped you and we just stayed,” one of them says casually to another.
Despite this apparent languor, Michael Steinberg’s film (with a screenplay by Roger Hedden, adapted from his play) has a crisp, alert manner and a strong sense that something momentous may be on its way. The principals are introduced just as their quiet frustrations are reaching critical mass. In a deliberately misleading opening scene, Mr. Steinberg presents Carol (Phoebe Cates) and Nick (Tim Roth) at the end of a long, boozy evening. They are reclining lazily, which is the film’s favorite physical attitude, and thinking the sorts of thoughts that most often occur late at night. Their friendship is vaguely sexual, but they both look too tired to care.
Nor does it matter when their evening is interrupted by another woman: Beth (Bridget Fonda), who greets Nick in quasi-wifely fashion and then takes him home. It develops that Nick and Carol are former lovers, Nick and Beth are living together, and Beth and Carol are best friends. In another film this might be a volatile triangle, but these characters are beyond jealous love. Stuck in some cosmic Enfield of the soul, reaching their late 20’s while still working at dead-end jobs in local stores and restaurants, they are all ready to put this awkward stage behind them.
In “The Waterdance,” the very fine film he co-directed with Neal Jimenez, Mr. Steinberg dealt with a larger subject in a less portentous way. This time, contrasting Enfield’s mall architecture with the magnificent desert that surrounds it, he does his best to let this small story expand.
The film’s implicit backdrop is a bland, artificial culture winning its war with nature. The principals are only vaguely aware of this, but it’s enough to leave them enervated and reluctant to fight. This film is much too studiedly hip to indulge in a happy ending, but in its wry, offbeat way it does inch forward. In this jaded context, a small step in the right direction is indeed a large step for mankind.
So Beth meets Sid (Eric Stoltz), a flaky housepainter who manages to fall deeply in love with her during the course of 24 hours. Carol watches Sid suspiciously while much of this goes on, trying to sand-bag him with tough questions. “This is what you do?” she asks dubiously while Sid paints. “I also mow lawns,” he says cheerfully. “Which is your career?” Carol inquires. Meanwhile, Nick, whose career is selling televisions at a chain store, has hit the road.
In contrast to the other three actors’ flirty, laid-back style, Mr. Roth’s diabolical manner makes him the film’s resident wild man. Behaving erratically, laughing manically at the wrong moments, doing his best to be unreliable at all times, Mr. Roth makes Nick a barely lovable wreck. The performance is startling, and it is not mitigated by easy charm, which makes the others’ devotion to Nick a little hard to understand. But Nick is volatile, which may be why his friends need him, and he can also be devilishly funny. “You got something like that, but fake?” he asks, spotting an authentic Indian artifact at a roadside souvenir stand.
The other actors share an easy, appealing rapport and a flair for dry understatement, which is the film’s prevailing tone. Bernd Heinl’s clean, sharp cinematography further emphasizes the absurd contrasts that shape these characters’ lives. And Michael Convertino’s music provides some lovely choral accents, brief hints that beyond this story’s veil of anomie there lies a world of promise.
Appearing in supporting roles are Alicia Witt as the shy, radiant young woman who turns up disconcertingly where Nick’s parents ought to be, and Peter Fonda, Ms. Fonda’s own parent, in a very brief cameo. Mr. Fonda, long hair covered by a bandanna, passes through the film on his motorcycle as if to offer the younger characters a warning: this is what happens if you drift too long.
Bodies, Rest and Motion (1993)
Directed by: Michael Steinberg
Starring: Phoebe Cates, Bridget Fonda, Tim Roth, Eric Stoltz, Alicia Witt, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Sidney Dawson, Jon Proudstar, Kezbah Weidner, Amaryllis Borrego
Screenplay by: Roger Hedden
Production Design by: Stephen McCabe
Cinematography by: Bernd Heinl
Film Editing by: Jay Cassidy
Costume Design by: Isis Mussenden
Set Decoration by: Helen Britten
Art Direction by: Daniel Talpers
Music by: Michael Convertino
MPAA Rating: R for language and sexuality.
Distributed by: Fine Line Features
Release Date: April 9, 1993
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