Exit to Eden

EXIT TO EDEN
USA 1994

This has the makings of a good film, or a piece of trash. The question is where to draw the line between one and the other.

Where this a mad dash to a satire on the part of the human spirit that just loves a bit of fun and excess, this could have been funny. Where it a serious story, trying to happen in a world where few know the difference between love and pleasure, or even realize that the combination is not necessarily a fantasy, this could have also been a good story, and film. But being a bit of a prime time story, with the mentality that people are not intelligent in the first place to realize that they have faults, and secret desires, this film, should be banned to the Ed Wood club, the nudity not withstanding. Somehow, even the affair between the leading characters is not even sexy and attractive. The attitude by then is already what is going to happen to the two detectives, whose story is more interesting.

But, unfortunately for those wanting this film to be serious, the characters of Fred and Sheila are played in a bit of the melodramatic style (I could hear the audience now) and the film, then has a bit of a problem trying to play up a serious love story around it.

If it were meant to be funny, the lead wouldn't be so serious, or stiff. Maybe nakedness is meant to be paraded, not to be a real person after all. Is this the theme and we all missed it.?

The story is of a photographer who happens to catch a man in his effort to smuggle something or other, and the chase that happens afterwards. The photographer is a bit mixed up and joins up for a pleasure camp where fantasies are made to come true, in any style desired. And of course, the two LA detectives are on the case as well, because that just happens to be the smuggler that they have been trying to nab for a long time. The photographer just happens to fall in love with the woman in charge, and that makes things a bit serious and difficult, for everyone concerned. The dominatrix feels she is losing control, etc, etc... (what does marriage and affairs have to do with control?)

But amidst it all, Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell are fun to watch as they are a bit unpredictable throwing ad lib lines between the actual dialogues. And if the lines are not funny, they are very clever. One would think that Saturday Night Live directors should have done this film, instead of somebody else.

Aside from good looking and attractive, I don't know that one could say that Dana Delaney is good. She is not bad. Maybe she is too self conscious about having to show herself around a bit. She has her moments, but she never seems to loosen up enough to make the leading character attractive and irresistible. Probably lack of good direction here. Both detectives seem to have a direction of their own, and their exchanges would better be suited for a stage, where we could have more fun. But watching them on film is not the same.

All in all, this is a piece of fluff with naked women. Are we that bored.?

2.5 GIBLOONS

DIRECTOR: Garry Marshall
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Theo Van De Sande
MUSIC: Patrick Doyle
CAST: Dana Delany, Paul Mercurio, Stuart Wilson, Iman, Hector Elizondo, Rosie O'Donnell, Dan Aykroyd
WRITTEN BY: Would you believe Anne Rice?
ONE WORD: Without trying to sound too sexist ... the major thing this film has going for it is the naked women? Sad ....

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