{"id":1146,"date":"2024-06-19T23:57:17","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T23:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/portrait-of-a-nobel-prize-winner-as-an-egomaniacal-heartless-sob\/"},"modified":"2024-06-19T23:57:17","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T23:57:17","slug":"portrait-of-a-nobel-prize-winner-as-an-egomaniacal-heartless-sob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/19\/portrait-of-a-nobel-prize-winner-as-an-egomaniacal-heartless-sob\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of a Nobel Prize-winner as an egomaniacal, heartless SOB"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Alan Rickman portrays an egomaniacal, preening, heartless SOB, he seems to have found himself an autobiographical role. Since Rickman the human being is kind, genial and well-loved, he is in fact acting in “Nobel Son,” but who else could seem so utterly at home as a supercilious, snide, hurtful snake? I’m thinking maybe Richard E. Grant? The late Terry-Thomas, certainly. There really isn’t a long list.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rickman plays a brilliant chemist named Eli Michaelson, the kind of man who, when he wins the Nobel Prize, those who know him best exclaim, $#!t!<\/i> His wife loves her work as a forensic pathologist, perhaps because when she is disassembling the victim of a run-in with an auto crusher, she can imagine it is her husband. Eli belittles his son in all things. He considers his colleagues inferiors at best, insectoid at worst.<\/p>\n

In “Nobel Son,” just when Eli is preparing to fly to Sweden and favor the crown with his presence, his son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) is kidnapped. The ransom: Eli’s $2 million prize money. (I am reminded of the day I called my mother to tell her I had won the Pulitzer, and she said, “Oh, honey, does it pay anything?” She meant well. She just didn’t see how I could make a living just … going to the movies.) Eli’s inclination is to tell the kidnappers: “You keep my son, and I’ll keep my money.” Then a severed thumb arrives in the mail. Never a harbinger of good.<\/p>\n

“Nobel Son” is a mercilessly convoluted version of a Twister, that genre in which the plot whacks us as if it’s taking batting practice. I will not hint at anything that happens. I will simply observe that it’s all entertaining. The plot by itself could have become tiresome; no audience enjoys spending all evening walking into stone walls. But the acting is another matter.<\/p>\n

Rickman supplies the crown jewel in the cast, but Mary Steenburgen is no less amusing as his wife, Sarah. A woman can be married to a man like Eli only by being a masochist, insane or in possession of a highly developed sense of sardonic irony. She doesn’t talk like Alice Kramden on “The Honeymooners,” but you know what I mean. And Steenburgen’s appearance is a pleasant surprise. She’s so often cast as a comic goofball that it’s good to be reminded that in a normal style and sensible clothes, she’s a beauty and a charmer. This movie makes up for “Four Christmases.”<\/p>\n

Shawn Hatosy plays the kidnapper, who gets up to more than we expect and less than he understands. Danny DeVito is a “recovering obsessive-compulsive” gardener, which is just as well, because imagine how often you’d want to wash your hands in that<\/i> line of work. Bill Pullman is a cop who thinks the whole setup stinks, and he’s only sniffing at one corner of the setup.<\/p>\n

These characters are Eli, Sarah, Barkley, Thaddeus, Max and Gastner. All names right at home in a novel by Dickens. But then there’s the brilliant writer, played by Eliza Dushku, who Barkley meets at a poetry reading. Her name is City Hall. Marry her, and every time you make a call from a bar, it will sound important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Alan Rickman portrays an egomaniacal, preening, heartless SOB, he seems to have found himself an autobiographical role. Since Rickman the human being is kind, genial and well-loved, he is in fact acting in “Nobel Son,” but who else could seem so utterly at home as a supercilious, snide, hurtful snake? I’m thinking maybe Richard …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[33,50,45,53,49,37],"class_list":["post-1146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction-movies","tag-comedy","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-indie","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}