Things Heard & Seen, which to my displeasure is not a sequel to Things Smelt & Dealt, is a 90-minute comedy lurking inside a very roomy two-hour ghost story. I think all that would need to change is the editing, and maybe the ending, for it to become a bitter but funny satire of academic life, with a hint of mysticism. It's the sort of thing Woody Allen excelled at, right down to the lecherous male lead who makes women pay for his own misdoings (not unlike Woody himself). Surely Shari Springer Bergman and Robert Pulcini, the directors who debuted with the brilliant American Splendor, realize that what distinguishes it is not the lame ghosts but the truly odd real-world figures.
Catherine (Amanda Seyfried) and George (James Norton), with their young daughter Franny (Ana Sophia Heger), move from the city to distant upstate New York, where George has gotten a position as assistant art professor at a small private school. The head of his department (F. Murray Abraham) loves him, and the students--mostly female--adore him, but Catherine, who had been an art restorer and painter, is out of her element. There's nothing for her there, but she goes where her husband goes. They move into a beautiful 19th-century house, which the realtor (Karen Allen, who's very welcome) neglects to mention has a devious past.
The typical events happen: lights flicker, things break, gusts of wind fly, voices whisper, images flash in front of people and then disappear. The academics around them are all enamored of Swedenborg, the Christian mystic who believed he could pass back and forth between heaven and hell (we spend more time in the latter than the former). Swedenborg's name is invoked more often here, I think, than in Lars von Trier's The Kingdom, which is a lot. While Catherine contends with the spirits, and with two helpful neighbors (Alex Neustaedter and Jack Gore) who have a connection with the previous owners of the house, George takes a special interest in a young townie (Natalia Dyer) who enjoys Caravaggio.
Norton is terrific at playing the grinning, superficially charming, boundlessly narcissistic professor whose boorishness matches his desperation. George might be the best on-screen sociopath since Zac Efron took on Ted Bundy, one who knows he's secured a lot in life that feeds his pride and lust endlessly, and he needs to make sure he holds on to it. There's a dignity to Seyfried's performance too, in that she manages to be convincing as someone who would be married to George, while still playing Catherine to the height of her intelligence and avoiding horror-movie mistakes (at least to a point). She's allowed to be better here than in You Should Have Left, where she also played the wife of a white dude who behaves badly, the sort of role she needs to branch away from as soon as possible.
The main plot, in which Catherine experiences ghosts that wouldn't scare a Goosebumps reader, is a total bore, but never mind that: take a look at the world the movie takes place in. As the goofy spiritualist art professor, Abraham is effortlessly likable. Pay attention, too, to Michael O'Keefe's performance as the sheriff, who's also the realtor's husband: his fish-out-of-water demeanor as a townie among a gaggle of seasonal academics is one of the movie's little subtle joys. Natalia Dyer needs more to do as the object of George's dalliance; her first couple of scenes suggest that she's going to be a formidable challenge to his little plot, refusing to be the virgin or jezebel he seems to expect, but she sadly fades into the background.
The same goes for Rhea Seehorn as Justine, an adjunct weaving professor (ho, ho) who befriends Catherine and quickly becomes hip to George. She's the movie's version of a Strong Woman, which is not that strong at all: she's mostly there to function as the detective and then the target of George's ire. James Urbaniak steals every scene as her husband, a wayward author who moved upstate to write a book but now says things like "We should go outside and look at the alpacas before they nap." I would watch a documentary about their marriage.
The ending is unacceptable. I had thought we were beyond stories where women's martyring themselves to punish cruel men is considered heroic rather than tragic, especially in one co-directed by a woman, but here we are. Let's have a story where the guy gets his comeuppance and the women get to live fulfilling lives without him. The last shot, in which the action of the movie is seamlessly blended into a painting, is pretty neat, or would have been, if it weren't so artificial.
The premise and plot of this movie scream out for ironic dark comedy rather than the dull earnest gothic romance it's trying to be. Picture Noel Coward writing it, and the arc being less focused on the supernatural events and more focused on Catherine and company gradually realizing, possibly with some spiritual help, that George is a total fraud and a cheat. Don't even change Norton's performance: George's increasingly audacious efforts to save face are perfect for comedy. Woody Allen made a movie called Melinda and Melinda, which was not one of his best, or even very good, but had an irresistible premise: a story centering around one woman told alternately as a tragedy and as a comedy. Things Heard & Seen is Melinda, when what we need is Melinda.
* 1/2 out of ****
