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The Dying Gaul (I) (2005)

 -  Drama  -  January 2005 (USA)
6.5
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Ratings: 6.5/10 from 1,895 users   Metascore: 62/100
Reviews: 57 user | 42 critic | 23 from Metacritic.com

A grief-stricken screenwriter unknowingly enters a three-way relationship with a woman and her film executive husband - to chilling results.

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Title: The Dying Gaul (2005)

The Dying Gaul (2005) on IMDb 6.5/10

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Cast

Cast overview:
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Elaine Tishop
...
Jeffrey Tishop
...
Robert Sandrich
Ryan Miller ...
Max Tishop
Faith Jefferies ...
Debbon Tishop
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Bella
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Olaf
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Liz
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Emad
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Kelli Cartonis
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Male Guest
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Malcolm Cartonis
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Dr. Marta Foss
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Storyline

A powerful and seductive Hollywood mogul convinces an impoverished West Hollywood writer, whose lover has recently died of AIDS, to sell his autobiographical screenplay for big bucks. The writer, Robert, knows he'll have to make major changes in the script (like changing the sex of the dying lover). During the rewrite, the producer, Jeffrey, takes Robert under his wing, introducing him to his wife Elaine, herself a closet screenwriter. Jeffrey approaches Robert for sex and Elaine approaches Robert out of curiosity about his sex life in grief. The entangled triangle of relationships threatens more than the completion of a film script. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

sex | lover | writer | screenwriter | hollywood | See more »

Genres:

Drama

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sexual content and language | See all certifications »
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Details

Official Sites:

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Language:

Release Date:

January 2005 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Kuoleva gallialainen  »

Filming Locations:


Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$53,944 (USA) (4 November 2005)

Gross:

$342,297 (USA) (20 January 2006)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

| (Ontario)

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Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

The film is dedicated to writer/director Craig Lucas's best friend, playwright Tony Kushner. See more »

Quotes

Jeffrey: Most Americans...
[his phone rings]
Jeffrey: Let's hold all my calls, please, Liz.
[to Robert]
Jeffrey: ...hate gay people. If they hear it's about gay people, they won't go.
See more »

Connections

References The Silence of the Lambs (1991) See more »

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User Reviews

 
Well Acted Triangle Undercut By Artsy Direction
11 November 2005 | by (Queens, NY) – See all my reviews

"The Dying Gaul" feels like an updated "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" set in Hollywood instead of academia. But it gradually veers towards "Fatal Attraction" as the opening jabs at commercial film-making, with lots of name and title dropping that seem to be writer Craig Lucas's revenge on compromises he made for his successful "Prelude to a Kiss," give way to catastrophic psychological manipulation.

The initial Hollywood commentary is emphasized through the settings, as the movie producer, Campbell Scott, and his ex-writer/liberal activist/household and children manager wife, Patricia Clarkson, live in an extraordinary house with a rippling pool and ocean view. Their financial success is wielded like a weapon as the camera restlessly swoops around all their possessions, household help and scenic property. The emotional price he's paid for this is clear as Scott's "Jeffrey" could be in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (to drop film titles like he does) as he'll clearly do anything to seal a deal.

Peter Sarsgaard drives on to the studio lot and into their lives with a completely different character from his four other released films this year, with inflections and body language that only occasionally get a bit too flamboyant as affectations of an out gay writer discussing issues of sexuality in the movies and his late lover. His grief and need for human warmth is so palpable that it is even believable that after failing with psychological counseling and Buddhism to deal with it, he clutches at what used to be called spiritualism, here delivered through the internet, shown visually both in the written word and the actors talking to the camera like reading aloud from their computer screens, edited effectively in the best key scenes with real life.

Clarkson is wonderful as she morphs from busy housewife lounging in a fetching bikini, to curious dabbler in the dark side, to woman scorned and revengeful manipulator. She may be the Ultimate Scary Mother, sexy, maternal and controlling, who while distraught over violent video games goes after the psyche. Unusually for how such a triangle has been portrayed in films (and the film is specifically set in 1995 as perhaps a more innocent time), we also get brief, sympathetic insight on another woman similarly affected by the writer's selfish actions that puts Clarkson's "Elaine" in perspective as she could have been portrayed as more of a brittle harpy. But each character alternately attracts and repels us.

In his directing debut Lucas does not well serve his own script, adapted from his play, as it could have been a lot tauter in exploring the slippery slope of ethics in human relationships, that all it takes is that one small step to deceive or keep secrets before one falls into the well. There could have been a lot fewer arty scenes in silhouette, at sunset, across water.

The Steve Reich music throughout becomes more irritating than tension-inducing.

While the title has something to do with the writer's long monologue about the significance of the Roman sculpture as an artist's way to make victims sympathetic, one is left here more with the feeling that these three folks deserve each other, though the collateral damage left in their wake is a tragedy.


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Big flaw in the movie- 1995 Anachronism Preraphaelite-1
Question about the ending... alan-murray-b
Why Brokeback Mountain??? RLONEILL
How can you all feel sorry for Robert? dizzymissus_26
The crying during intimacy thing? mikenj30
How explicit is the sex Dannyramone86
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