THE CENTER OF THE WORLD (2001) ¢ ¢
D: Wayne Wang
Molly Parker, Peter Sarsgaard, Carla Gugino
Wayne Wang and Paul Auster try a variation on "Last Tango In Paris", with a story about a stripper and a computer geek on a weekend in Las Vegas. It's a case of opposites attracting (or at least coming together briefly) and not knowing how to connect. Richard (Peter Sarsgaard) thinks he's found the center of the world with his computer. Florence (Molly Parker) thinks she's found it in a more intimate place. She's a heartbreaker, a ballbreaker, a drummer in a no-name band. He's a disheveled recluse, a virtual millionaire who lives on leftover pizza and spends too much time in cyberspace. She's deceptive, elusive, the same defense mechanisms that protect her in the skin trade cutting her off from expressing or accepting genuine emotion. He's an emotional open book, with no defense mechanisms at all. Parker and Sarsgaard both work real hard to make something out of this, and if the movie clicks at all, it's because of them. What's missing is the kind of background information that could suggest who these people really are, or what they have in common beyond this three-day lap dance. The same remoteness that keeps Richard and Florence from getting very close to each other, keeps the audience from getting very close to them. One thing they both know by the end of the film: Life can be empty at the center of the world.
