April 27, 2001

By Veronica Mixon

TOWN AND COUNTRY is an amusing screwball comedy about four friends who discover that infidelity not only tears apart marriages but also tests friendships. It is a glossy, breezy, good-looking movie with a host of attractive mature actors and that's certainly a wonderful change considering the current obsession with youth in the movies. The real problem with this film is the negative buzz that has followed it for the last couple of years. Stories about fights between Warren Beatty, the director, Peter Chelsom and the studio have convinced most people to dismiss the film before it's gotten a proper airing. It also may be a hard sell to American audiences because today's comedies are filled with bathroom humor and gross-out jokes.

Beatty is Porter Stoddard, a successful architect who stupidly begins an affair with a pretty cellist, Alex (Nastassja Kinski). He knows it's a mistake early on because they have nothing in common and because the pretty young woman is a narcissistic nut. Nevertheless, his wife, Ellie (Diane Keaton) gets wind of it. Meanwhile, the marriage of their best friends, Griffin (Gary Shandling) and Mona (Goldie Hawn) is also on the rocks after Griffin is caught romancing a mysterious redhead. Both couples find that their comfortable world of big luxury apartments, country homes in the Hamptons, weekend trips to exotic places like Paris and Sunny Valley are jeopardized by the lost of trust in their partners.

Porter has no clear reason for his infidelity other than his changing role as a father - his kids (Josh Harnett and Tricia Vessey) are old enough to have their lovers spend the night at home - and the fact that he's still attracted to pretty young women like Jenna Elfman and Andie MacDowell. Porter seems to be chasing some elusive idea of fun that he thinks his comfortable marriage is preventing him from having.

Griffin, however, is about to make a major lifestyle change and he's finding it hard to tell his closest friends. When he invited Porter to his cabin in Sunny Valley, he's adventurous and the life of the party. But, he still finds it hard to be frank with Porter.

TOWN AND COUNTRY is a familiar tale that pokes fun at the rich and the people who envy the lifestyle, and it should have been more enjoyable. Warren Beatty shows a wonderful comic flair and he's especially good as the straight man for the crazy antics of nutty characters like Charlton Heston and Marian Seldes, who are Andie MacDowell's wacky parents. Porter is the horny everyman with a platinum lifestyle, and his wife angrily reminds him of this fact. But Beatty isn't afraid to poke holes in the debonair portrait of the aging womanizer.

I wish the filmmakers had given Gary Shandling more to do. He's funny with very little effort. Furthermore, Shandling proved he has a nice screen presence in his last film, "What Planet Are You From?" Also, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn, who last thrilled us in "First Wives Club," are reduced to being angry wives. When both women remind their husbands of the time and effort it took to build a comfortable life and the need for honesty, who can argue. Porter discovers that the greener pasture on the other side of the fence is filled with nutty, desperate people and Griffin has simply wasted a lot of time pretending to be someone he isn't. Furthermore, I get the feeling, especially since this debut was postponed a number of times, that there was more footage of TOWN AND COUNTRY that could have provided a fuller, more cohesive portrait of all the characters involved. Oh, well, we'll have to wait until the DVD.