THE RENDEZVOUS (Curt Truninger). Screens tonight (Thursday, June 23) and Wednesday (June 29) at the Revue Cinema. See listings. Rating: NN
The very definition of a small picture, The Rendezvous is an adaptation of a stage play set in one primary location with just two characters. Director Curt Truninger’s goals are as modest as his budget, and the release plan is similarly low-key, with two screenings scheduled at the Revue Cinema this week.
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t work.
Adapted from Tom Noonan’s two-hander What Happened Was… (which Noonan filmed in 1994 with himself and the terrific Karen Sillas in the roles), The Rendezvous follows two people who work in the same legal office on a very awkward first date. Jackie (Eva Birthistle) has invited Michael (Tim Dutton) over for dinner, and in the course of the meal they reveal themselves to each another. It doesn’t go smoothly.
Truninger’s screenplay, co-written with Margrit Ritzmann, relocates the action from Jackie’s New York loft to a Toronto condo but retains most of the original dialogue, including references to The New Yorker and Time Out that seem weirdly disconnected from Michael and Jackie’s reality. Further confusing the issue, Dutton is English and Birthistle Irish, and the script attempts to incorporate that into their characters’ backstories.
Those are minor distractions, though. The real problem lies in Truninger’s sterile take on the material, which forces the actors to stand (or sit) stock still while delivering their lines. It makes the static story seem even more airless, and given that choice, Truninger’s occasional flourish of creating impossible two-shots via a mirroring lens just feels inappropriately arty, as though he doesn’t understand the text’s uncomfortable intimacy.
I also have no idea why Truninger and Ritzmann chose to replace the horrific children’s story Jackie reads in Noonan’s original with a new monologue written by Toronto author Gemma Files that radically changes the point of a key scene. Maybe Truninger will discuss it after the premiere.
