Movie Review: Barney's Version

Bridegroom Barney (Paul Giamatti, left) and his father Izzy (Dustin Hoffman). Photo / Supplied

The title character of the last novel by Canadian comic novelist Mordecai Richler is the ultimate unreliable narrator.

He is the voice of the laugh-a-page memoir of Barney Panofsky (Jewish-Canadian, like his creator), a foul-mouthed, cigar-chomping, unsafe-drinking producer of bad television shows, whose fate is hinted at by footnotes in which his constant errors and misquotations are impatiently corrected.

Barney aches to leave to posterity a personal history more flattering to him than the one told in a best-selling novel by an ex-cop who is sure Barney got away with murder, and it's one of the story's most poignant touches that neither the cop, nor his suspect, finds out the truth of this - which we do.

For, as its title suggests, this autobiography is not definitive. Rather, it's a raging politically incorrect catalogue of slights (both real and imagined) and triumphs (ditto), that is impossible to imagine on screen - until you see it done.

If writer Michael Konyves and director Lewis, both TV veterans making feature debuts, don't quite nail it, it's not for the want of some pretty classy trying.

The film has its flat patches as the adaptation struggles to be faithful to its rambunctious source material. But thanks to Giamatti's ferociously energetic performance (it won him a Golden Globe, but not even a nomination for an Oscar), we are drawn irresistibly into his life.

The story's early stages are relocated from Paris in the 50s (where both Richler and Barney misspent their early days) to Rome in the 70s where Barney embarks on the first of what will be three marriages.

His second, back in Montreal, is to a shrill Jewish princess (Driver) that both film and book never name (for reasons best not revealed here, it doesn't last as long as the reception). But much of the film is about Barney's lifelong struggle to be worthy of the love of the third Mrs P, whose patience turns out not to be inexhaustible.

This quick summary contains no plot spoilers since the film is narrated in flashback and we know, more or less, how things turn out before they start. It's in the telling that the story, on page and screen, captures the imagination.

Hoffman, in an inspired piece of casting and a generous piece of acting, matches the cadences of his performances to Giamatti's, and it's a privilege to see them together.

Lewis has fun with lesser roles too, casting famous Canadian directors, including Denys Arcand (a wonderful stuffy waiter) and David Cronenberg in cameos.

And if Pike as the lustrous Miriam, the love of Barney's life, is just too good to be true, that's rather the point. This is a film to enjoy - but you shouldn't believe a word of it. As that other famous narrator, Chief Broom, said of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, it's the truth, even if it didn't happen.

Stars: 4/5
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre Director: Stephen J. Lewis
Running time: 131 mins
Rating: M (offensive language, sexual references)
Verdict: Believe nothing

-TimeOut