Film Review: Trixie (2000)

11 months ago (Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

Many businesses would love to have employees as ambitious and dedicated as the protagonist of Trixie, 2000 crime comedy written and directed by Alan Rudolph. Trixie Zurbo (played by Emily Watson) is a security guard in a department store who dreams of becoming a detective. She gets an opportunity to achieve this dream when she is hired as security in a casino, where she would work undercover. There she meets various eccentric, unusual and sometimes shady characters that either work or frequent the establishment. Among those is a man named Dex Lang (played by Dermot Mulroney) who is attracted to Trixie. He invites her to the yacht owned by his boss, corrupt real estate entrepreneur W. "Red" Rafferty (played by Will Patton) whose pill-popping girlfriend Dawn Sloane (played by Lesley Anne Warren) might be connected to a blackmail scheme that involves corrupt state senator Drummond Avery (played by Nick Nolte). When things escalate to murder, Trixie finally gets the opportunity to investigate the matter.

Alan Rudolph, known as one of the proteges of Robert Altman, possesses great talent for writing quirky characters and unusual dialogue, as well as the ability to gather superb acting talent in this film. In Trixie it is represented by a diverse and respected cast, which is dominated by Emily Watson, an English actress who plays the protagonist who is slightly delusional, but nevertheless charming. However, just like in so many of Rudolph's films, Trixie also shows Rudolph's tendency not to know what to do with the characters. The result is a film which Rudolph described as "screwball noir", but which ends up as a mostly unsuccessful amalgam of screwball comedies and film noir. Trixie mostly works in the first half, where there is more emphasis on humour and character exposition, but begins to fall apart in the second part, when Rudolph tries to play it straight, resulting in a conventional and ultimately disappointing murder mystery. Rudolph doesn't help the film by burdening the character of Trixie with malapropisms which are funny at first only to get tiresome with time. The film is nevertheless watchable, mostly due to the spirited performances of the cast, including Nick Nolte who has worked with Rudolph before and who obviously has great fun in playing the standard character of a corrupt and hypocritical politician. But this isn't enough for Trixie to be recommended to viewers who aren't great fans of Watson.

RATING: 4/10 (+)