New ‘Manchurian Candidate’ falters

John Frankenheimer’s 1962 Cold War thriller “The Manchurian Candidate” was a remarkable, unnerving movie. Articulating the rampant national paranoia of the time — the fear of global communism — the film features startling performances by Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey. It has emerged as one of the great film classics of the 20th century because it not only encapsulates the moment from which it came, it magnifies larger, collective fears that transcend the era.

So director Jonathan Demme’s remake of “The Manchurian Candidate” comes as a bit of a surprise. How can a film that is routinely described as a masterpiece, on par with “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca” or “Gone With the Wind,” be improved upon? It probably can’t. But that’s not what Demme has set out to do.

In this new version, our candidate is Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), a congressman and Medal of Honor winner. Saving his unit from capture by enemy fighters during the Persian Gulf War, his heroism helps propel him into a promising political career — with the close supervision of his ambitious mother, Senator Eleanor Prentice Shaw (Meryl Streep).

This patriotic story of valor and sacrifice rings hollow for Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington), Shaw’s captain during their tour of duty in Kuwait, who’s been plagued by bizarre nightmares of kidnapping and torture for the last 13 years. Marco’s skepticism of the accepted version of events is replaced by the realization that they have been victims of brainwashing. But by whom, and for what purpose? As Marco gets closer to the truth, Shaw gets closer to the White House, becoming the leading candidate for the vice-presidency.

Adapting George Axelrod’s 1962 screenplay (which was adapted from the 1959 novel by Richard Condon), was no small feat, and screenwriter Daniel Pyne took the wise route of shifting the story to the present day. While China is still a communist nation, the idea of a “Manchurian” sleeper agent emerging as a major political candidate seems less plausible in an age where threats to national security seem more insidious than those of the Cold War days. Shaw’s mother has been transformed from the 1950’s wife who wields the real power behind her senator husband, to a thoroughly empowered woman in full command of her authority.

It’s this new take on Shaw’s mother, as fleshed out by Streep, that proves to be the most potent and engaging of the characters. Just as in the original film, Shaw’s mother is central to the conspiracy, but Streep’s Eleanor is even more ferocious, genuinely believing her malignant agenda is in her country’s best interest. She makes Eleanor’s unnatural fixation on her son even more repellent than Lansbury did. Streep’s performance is riveting; an Oscar nomination shouldn’t be far behind.

That can’t be said for the rest of the film, which falters in its attempts to recreate some of the nuanced atmosphere of the original. In the 1962 film, plot revelations are delivered in sharp contrast to cinematography that crafts a brooding tension from lighting and camera angles. A simple facial expression or a deck of playing cards speaks volumes; when characters do speak, it’s weighted with urgency and desperation. Here, there’s a lot of talk, but much of it feels disengaged, especially with Washington and Schreiber, who seem as though they themselves are taking direction from implanted computer chips.

Demme has made a serious effort to synthesize the machiavellian themes of the first version with those of our modern political landscape. Filtering a clear vision through the murky waters of international relations is no easy task, and Demme comes close to realizing that clarity with this film. For that reason, it’s worth giving some consideration, even if it’s not the original — which is more than worth the effort of tracking down at your local video store.