Town & Country Review

The chances are that if you’ve heard of "Town And Country" already it’s for all the wrong reasons. The term ‘troubled production’ could have been invented to describe this movie; it started filming in 1998, with English director Peter Chelsom and leading man Warren Beatty apparently falling out early in the shoot. If the rumours are to be believed Chelsom was actually removed from the film during the editing by Beatty, who allegedly oversaw it’s many subsequent re-edits, before it finally emerged in US cinemas this spring after a two year delay. Released with the minimum of fanfare (none of the stars or the director attended the premiere or undertook interviews to promote it) the film bombed, recouping less than $7M of its rumoured $90M at the box office.

Its certainly easy to believe director Chelsom’s involvement was kept to a minimum, as the end result lacks many of the whimsical touches that made his previous two movies - the comedies "Hear My Song" and "Funny Bones" – so entertaining. This comedy about two wealthy New York middle aged couples - Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton and Gary Shandling & Goldie Hawn – coming to terms with the husbands’ infidelities initially resembles a Woody Allen movie in many ways, with its ensemble cast and self absorbed characters. However it takes a (failed) leap into the realm of screwball comedies about half way through, when the men go off in search of themselves and meet a selection of oddball characters, including socialite Andie McDowell and Charlton Heston as her Hemminway-esque, old-fashioned macho, rifle toting Father, in perhaps the film’s funniest performance.

Ultimately "Town And Country" fails because it simply isn’t anyway near funny enough. It certainly has its moments (Beatty dancing in a polar bear suit, Heston on the rampage in a safari suit) but they are few and far between. You also have to question the wisdom of whichever Hollywood exec initially gave the greenlight to a film about characters old enough to be the parents – or even the grandparents – of the average cinemagoer; why on earth would the Saturday night multiplex crowd want to see Warren Beatty trying to ignore the fact he’s been old enough to qualify for his OAP bus pass for the last four years?