SAFE HOUSE
US, 1997, 90 minutes, Colour.
Patrick Stewart, Kimberley Williams, Hector Elizondo.
Directed by Eric Seven Stahl.
Safe House is an odd combination of genres. On the one hand, it is a US conspiracy thriller, a former public relations employee keeping a computer database on the illegal activities of an admiral who becomes a candidate for the US presidency. On the other hand, it is a story of a ageing, senility and incipient Alzheimer's Disease.
The film focuses on Patrick Stewart as the executive who becomes more and more paranoid. He plays drills to be ready for an assassination attempt. His daughter and son-in-law are exasperated and hire an expert to look after him. As it turns out, of course, she is the hired agent sent to control him.
While there are some effective scenes showing the effects of ageing and the impact on family, the film seems to get more preposterous in its plot when the truth of the conspiracy is revealed and there is a final shootout.
1. Impact of the film, espionage, conspiracy, drama on ageing and family?
2. California, the luxurious house, the atmosphere of affluence? The musical score? The title and its ironies?
3. Mace: his previous work, public relations, the Pentagon, his computer database, his office and all its equipment, the storing of the data about the admiral, his plan to disseminate the information if it were necessary? His paranoia, the opening drill and the fear of the maid with the shootings? The later drills, his final fear? The nature of his paranoia?
4. Michelle and Mark, their concern about Mace, the collage of interviews with would-be carers? The decision to take on Andi? Taking her father to the doctor, the discussions with the doctor, Mace's saying that there was a bomb under the seat and Michelle's final exasperation? The decision to commit him? The pressures of senility and ageing on the carers in the family?
5. Stewart, his friendship with Mace, seeing him as a father, participating in the drills? His death?
6. Andi, attractive, plausible? Her skills with Mace, arguments, chess-playing, the deals? Doing a drill? The friendship with Stewart? His proposal, the money? Mace following her, discovering the truth, the confrontation and her being shot?
7. Mace and the interviews with the doctor, the information about ageing, the drugs, treatment, obsessions?
8. Mace and his paranoia, its foundation in fact, his fears, the beginning of his senility, the lapses in memory, Andi playing on this, his coming to a judgment about her, following her, discovering the truth and the confrontation?
9. A plausible or implausible melodrama - and insight into the ageing process?
