sasheldon-14-473280
I agree with everything those who love this film have said about Bill Murray. I had trouble with Catherine Hicks at first, feeling she wasn't powerful enough. But with each viewing I find she really captures the shallowness of Isabel.
bkoganbing
I was as amazed as anyone else when Columbia remade the Tyrone Power classic The Razor's Edge with Bill Murray in the lead in 1984. What kind of casting is that I and many others wondered. Almost 30 years later, I'm still wondering.The original adaption was driven by Tyrone Power probably at his most heroic as the World War I veteran earnestly seeking some kind of philosophical grounding. As Herbert Marshall observes in that film, Power is possibly the most amazing individual he's ever met. No one could have said that about Bill Murray. Try as I may I expected at numerous points in the film Dan Ackroyd and the rest coming on accompanied by the Ghostbusters theme.It's the same plot for the most part, Murray begs off his expected engagement and marriage to Catherine Hicks saying he wants to go to Europe. She refuses to believe it's for study, she just thinks he wants to sow wild oats. His quest and her misunderstanding of him is what drives the rest of the film. After Murray and Hicks have been reunited in Paris along comes Theresa Russell playing the part of Sophie for which Anne Baxter got a Best Supporting Actress Award. Russell comes closest though she doesn't make it quite herself to equaling the original performer. Baxter is a study in degradation from an eager newlywed to a woman who after losing her husband and baby in a car crash drifts to Europe and becomes a streetwalker. Murray as did Power in the original tries to rescue her, but to no avail. There's a different emphasis here as Russell's role is built up at the expense of Hicks's part which was done by Gene Tierney in the original. That was a mistake for as great as Baxter was, in fact the role is a supporting one.Denholm Elliott who usually I like was a pale reflection of Clifton Webb as the society obsessed Uncle Elliott Templeton for which he got a Best Supporting Actor nomination. The part of the author W. Somerset Maugham was written into the original and played to perfection by Herbert Marshall. He narrates and he's the observer of events. It's a very reflective plot device guiding the viewer to what the author was trying to say. Marshall played Maugham in two films and was so effective, he's the image we have of W. Somerset Maugham today. That overall narration was needed, but Murray took the lead into places that Tyrone Power did not and not for the better. Maybe he really was sowing wild oats.I recommend highly renting or buying the DVD of the original version of The Razor's Edge before you see this and see what I mean.
james-spoerl
This movie is a great testimonial to the idea that life is complex and people handle it(or refuse to) in different ways. Bill Murray's character finds out that there is much more to life and that it can be very difficult to face. There were characters hiding behind drugs and alcohol or the shallow trappings of high society. The posted quote of Murray's character about his fellow ambulance driver does not contain the most important part. The driver had always written off other killed people as "Liars" and "they won't be missed". Bill Murray labels him as a liar and says that he won't be missed. This is a fundamental of PTSD. One does not have to face the grief and horror if they can diminish the person/enemy/friend in any way. As far as the whole movie's meaning, you sort out what or who is important in your life and cast away the rest. I thank Summerset Maugham and Bill Murray for bringing this movie to life for me. I was 20 and quite shallow when it came out. I am 47 now and living a life that I could not have predicted.
Jay Oyster (tergenev)
This film is at least structurally similar to the recent film 'Eat, Pray, Love' with Julia Roberts. They both focus on an individual who sort of runs away from their life, travels, and attempts to find more meaning in their lives.Personally, the source material gives A Razor's Edge an unfair advantage. But listening to my own criticisms of Eat, Pray, love, I had to think back to one of my own personal favorite films, the Bill Murray version of The Razor's Edge. Some have argued that the Maugham novel was far better than the film, but I disagree. I've read the Maugham novel. I saw the movie. I prefer the film, though I liked them both a great deal.The themes of the novel are there in the film, but the movie chooses to focus on the themes through Larry's story rather than through Uncle Elliot's. The novel focuses most of the time telling Elliot Templeton's life, with this strange bird Larry floating in and out of the scene from time to time. They are both characters on journeys seeking meaning. They both find what they need to find at the end, and it isn't what they set out to find in the beginning.The reason I love this story, no matter which way it's told, is that it fundamentally understands reality in a way that the current rendition ('Eat, Pray, Love') does not. Life is not always going to be pretty, and certainly not just because you have some sort of higher 'mission' to find true meaning in your life. The bad people in A Razor's Edge end up being so much more reprehensible than those in Eat, Pray, Love, and yet you end up hating the lead character in the latter film oh so much more for being so banal. (Isabel is one of the truly evil creatures in literature. Liz is just a thinly veiled version of the author, who naturally can't see that she's vile.) The themes of the two stories? The Razor's Edge, both versions, is truly a student of existential philosophy, "The only meaning, the only reward, in life is the experience you have in living it." Eat, Pray, Love, on the other hand, is a child of excess whose only message seems to be, "It doesn't matter who you hurt along the way as long as you feel good in the end." There is a certain self-indulgence required in this sort of 'journey of self-discovery' tale. But no one can really say that Larry didn't pay for going on his journey. Maybe it's just as self-indulgent that he did so, but I ended up truly liking and admiring Larry at the end of his journey. Liz, and I cannot really waffle on this primordial instinct, most totally deserves the destined place she has reserved in the 3rd circle of Hell (Gluttony), with an occasional weekend spent in the 7.3.3 circle of Hell (Violence against Art).
