You could call Harmony Korine’s “Mister Lonely” a comeback, but that would imply the return was anticipated, or that it heralds a return to form. I’m not sure either description applies. “Mister Lonely” is just as unconventional, by Hollywood standards, as his earlier films, if markedly less pugnacious.
In his latest picture, Korine, who is best known for his screenplay “Kids” (written in a few weeks at the tender age of 22), seems to be working through some of the things he went through as wunderkind turned washout, taking on the desire to be somebody else and faith in the impossible as themes and manifesting them in his singular, surreal style.
“Mister Lonely” is as plotless and meandering as Korine’s other movies, but it’s a lot more plaintive. Two plots with no apparent connection intertwine.
In the main story, a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) living a lonely life in Paris meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) while performing at a nursing home. Marilyn invites Michael to join the commune for impersonators in the Scottish Highlands where she lives with, among others, her husband, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), and her daughter, Shirley Temple (Esme Creed- Miles). Michael agrees mainly because he has fallen in love with Marilyn.
Meanwhile, at a Catholic mission in Central America, a nun falls out of an airplane and discovers by accident that she can land safely, as if wearing a parachute. When the priest heading the mission (an enthusiastic Werner Herzog) discovers this, he encourages all the nuns to try the miracle. Soon, the sisters are popping wheelies at 10,000 feet and doing synchronized flying routines until, eventually, the miracle is recognized by the Vatican and they’re all invited to come meet the pope.
Things are far from ideal at the commune, where an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease forces its residents to slaughter their sheep, and where a disastrous theatrical performance leads to an unexpected tragedy. The obvious parallels are between the young Korine and the trusting, daredevil nuns, or between what happens to them when they’re summoned by the pope and what happened to the young director when Hollywood beckoned.
“Mister Lonely” remains mostly on the level of abstraction. You get it but you don’t always feel it.
“Mister Lonely”
Not rated 1 hour, 52 minutes. Directed by Harmony Korine; written by Harmony and Avi Korine; starring Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, Anita Pallenberg, James Fox, Werner Herzog. Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
