By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
Seattle International Film Festival Kicks Off With Festive Gala Opener
The Seattle International Film Festival kicked off last night with a Gala screening of The Extra Man, starring Kevin Kline, Paul Dano and Katie Holmes. Director Robert Pulcini was on-hand for the festivities, along with actors Paul Dano and Alicia Goranson. Goranson enthusiastically praised both Seattle’s beauty (why thanks, we love it here too) and the hospitality of festival staff (which I also have to second, as both SIFF’s press office and guest hospitality staff are first-rate). Dano, who always strikes me as one of those truly artistic actors who prefers delving into a role to being thrust in the spotlight, gamely said a few words as well in his awkwardly charming manner, though it didn’t seem he’d expected to be called upon to speak in front of the packed house.
As a festival opener, it was fairly typical of SIFF to open with a film that, like Seattle itself, is a little bit quirky, a little bit artsy, and a lot less mainstream than other fests might choose for a Gala opening film. The Extra Man, even it it hadn’t been acquired by Todd Wagner’s and Mark Cuban’s Magnolia, probably would have been more likely to show up at one of the duo’s 2929 Entertainment-owned Landmark Theaters (Seattle boasts seven of them) than at your local multiplex.
Adapted by co-directors Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (who also collaborated on the Oscar-nominated American Splendor) along with Jonathan Ames off of Ames’ novel of the same name, the film follows a neurotic young teacher and would-be writer, Louis Ives (Dano) who fancies himself a character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and struggles both with interacting normally with other people in the modern world and with his own attraction to women’s lingerie. When Louis loses his job teaching at a tony private school after being caught in the teachers’ lounge trying on a co-worker’s bra, he heads to Manhattan to pursue his dream of writing, renting a room from an eccentric playwright (Kline).
The Extra Man is a “hold review” film at the fest — meaning that, although it was reviewed out of Sundance, reviews out of SIFF have to be held until release because it has a distributor — so I can’t say as much as I’d like about it until it comes out in the fall. For now, suffice it to say that I while I had some issues with the film using quirkiness too much for its own sake rather than in revealing more about the characters, I still found it funny and entertaining overall.
The Gala opening moved this year from the Paramount Theater to the stately Benaroya Hall, which made for a bit more of a festive, upscale air than previous years’ opening nights at SIFF; the Seattle crowd, which tends to view “dressing up” as meaning “I’ll pull out the jeans without holes in them and toss on a scarf,” seemed more inclined to cast aside the comfortable footwear and put on the ritz a bit more in honor of the switch to the Benaroya locale. This had the effect of lending an air of palpable excitement, which is precisely what you want in kicking off a film festival. Added bonus: because of the move to Benaroya the fest was able to put on its traditional opening night Gala party in the same location as the film, which avoided the need for attendees to traverse the dicey, temperamental Seattle weather in shuffling from one location to the next.
The party itself (bolstered by music that gave things a congenial air rather than being overwhelmingly, annoyingly loud, as is so often the case at large fest parties) was a swell affair, although it was rather packed and there seemed to be a bit of confusion among the crowd as to where the bars and food could be found. Once my companions and I found out that our gold wristbands, like Willy Wonka’s magic golden tickets, would get us into the “red carpet” gallery level up above the thronging crowd, though, we could see better the layout of things and spot where everything was laid out.
The party appeared, as always, to be well-sponsored, with an array of snackish food offerings from tacos to Dilletante chocolates to Cupcake Royale cupcakes; on the red-carpet level, polite and endlessly patient fest volunteers circulated with trays of appetizers that included skewered cherry tomatoes with fresh mozzerella and basil drizzled with balsamic (yum), croustini with something that tasted like it was maybe goat cheese spread topped with proscuitto (double yum), cucumber slices with smoked salmon, and, natch, a variation on that fest party staple, chicken-on-a-stick. The rum-based party drinks were quite tasty in washing things down.
I ran into one of my favorite Seattle folks, SIFF programming maven Beth Barrett, at the party and caught up with her a bit on fest overall; she confirmed my hunch that, in spite of the faltering economy that’s put other fests on shaky ground, SIFF continues to hold strong. I think this is largely because, as I’ve written before about SIFF, folks in Seattle love and support their fest with a mama-tiger ferocity; it helps also that SIFF has really worked to build a year-round slate of diverse independent film offerings at their newish SIFF Cinema space over in Seattle Center.
SIFF Cinema is located very near Seattle’s ballet and opera, which tend to attract the kind of folks you’d like to have supporting your film festival. While Seattle has no shortage of folks who will dig deep in their jean pockets to go see independent films both during the fest and year-round, you need (in addition to those all-important corporate sponsors, natch) the kind of wealthy individual patrons who can afford to shell out bigger bucks in support of the arts to sustain a fest like SIFF; fortunately, Seattle doesn’t seem to have a shortage of both types of fest supporters.
Overall, opening night of SIFF was a rousing success, thanks to support from the local crowd and a great staff and legion of volunteers working to pull it off. Now that we’ve kicked things off, it’s time to delve into 25 days of SIFF offerings, which include heaps of interesting-looking Eastern European and Asian films, a diverse slate of indie film generally, and some midnight fun as well. Much more to come from the fest over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
-by Kim Voynar
