Home Movies: 'Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature' and more

Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on March 22, 2013 at 11:00 AM, updated March 22, 2013 at 11:01 AM


"Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature," 1983-1986, 276 min., not rated, $24.98 DVD

Now that he's become the first three-time winner of the Academy Award for best actor, even the most obscure items on Daniel Day-Lewis' résumé are being unearthed. Plenty of Oscar winners have embarrassing turkeys in their pasts, but this is Daniel Day Lewis we're talking about. Even the mildest of the three mid-1980s BBC films in this set rises to a level of engaging mediocrity.

The "Daniel Day-Lewis Triple Feature" should be viewed in chronological order for maximum impact. "How Many Miles to Babylon" (1982) is an undistinguished, but competently crafted, earnest bit of soft-focus pacifism. In his first lead role, Day-Lewis plays an upper-class Irish soldier in World War I who can't decide whether he should be fighting for or against Britain.

"Dangerous Corner," which aired the following year, doesn't break new ground either, but this drawing-room mystery-melodrama (literally, the whole thing takes place in one room) is a sparkling example of its type with a clever concluding conceit. A dozen or so aristocratic acquaintances begin to unravel the truth behind their friend's recent suicide, a process they eventually regret. Along the way, there are revelations, reversals and recriminations enough to power a season's worth of soap opera.

"The Insurance Man" was broadcast in 1986, after Day-Lewis' big-screen career began to take off with 1985's "My Beautiful Laundrette," and it's the actor's final TV work to date. In it, he plays a Jewish doctor named Kafka, who works in a labyrinthine medical facility in Nazi-occupied Prague. The screenplay, by celebrated scribe Alan Bennett ("The Madness of George III," "The History Boys"), details the frustrating efforts of a worker named Franz to obtain treatment and/or compensation for a disfiguring skin condition caused by his job in a dye factory.

Co-starring Jim Broadbent and directed by Richard Eyre (who reteamed for Broadbent's Oscar-winning turn in "Iris"), it's the only one of the three films worth seeking out on its own merits. "The Insurance Man" combines dark humor ("I'm sick from work," Franz tells one bureaucrat. "Well, we're all sick from work!" is the reply) and stylish, claustrophobic design for a cross between Dennis Potter and (of course) Franz Kafka.

Released separately ($24.98 DVD), the 1985 miniseries "My Brother Jonathan" gave Day-Lewis a big, prestige lead role as the older, but less favored son in an Edwardian-era Midlands family. It's a typical piece of BBC period melodrama, but, tellingly, Day-Lewis has more memorable moments on screen during his intermittent appearances in the 77-minute "Insurance Man" than he does in the four-hour "Jonathan"

All told, these releases fill in some intriguing gaps in the career of the most acclaimed actor of our era. Now, if they'd just get around to releasing 1991's "Eversmile, New Jersey," on disc. If you haven't seen Day-Lewis as an itinerant dentist in Patagonia, you don't know what you're missing.


"Badlands" The fantastic cover art is almost reason enough to buy the Criterion Collection's Blu-ray release of Terrence Malick's first feature. The film's stunning cinematography, a pair of indelible performances from Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and a new making-of documentary are practically icing on the cake.
(1973, 94 min., PG, $39.95 Blu-ray, $29.95 DVD)

"In Their Skin" This American take on Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" never rises (or descends) to the same masterful level of bleakness, but adds a veneer of class-consciousness and liberal guilt to the mix. Selma Blair and Josh Close play a couple staying at their vacation home with their young son, while James D'Arcy and Rachel Miner have fun with the roles of the less refined couple whose initially naive impositions eventually take on a menacing edge.
(2011, 96 min., not rated, $24.98 DVD, $3.99-$4.99 digital rental, $14.99-$19.99 digital purchase)

-- Marc Mohan