Pick of the Week: State and Main
Tagline: "When a film crew came to Waterford, Vermont they shot first and asked questions later."
Length: 105 minutesMPAA Rating: R for language and brief sexual images
State and Main is an entertaining comedy from writer-director David Mamet (The Winslow Boy, The Spanish Prisoner, Oleanna, House of Games) that features lots of witty dialogue. The talented ensemble cast includes Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Julia Stiles. State and Main is about what happens in the picturesque town of Waterford, Vermont, when a big-budget movie is shot there. Mamet names his film after the only intersection in Waterford that boasts a traffic light.
As State and Main opens, director Walt Price (William H. Macy) arrives in Waterford a few days in advance of starting shooting his movie, which is titled The Old Mill. Price looks at the charming central square and says, "This is what my people die for -- the right to make a movie in this town." Price is pleased that Waterford still looks much as it did in 1895 and the residents seem eager to cooperate with the filming, but he quickly becomes aware of a new crisis: Waterford’s mill burned down in 1960 and building a replacement will be prohibitively expensive.
We soon learn Price has already exhausted most of his budget while preparing to shoot The Old Mill in a New Hampshire town, but he had to hastily abandon that location when his leading man became romantically involved with a local underage girl. And shortly that leading man, Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin), arrives in Waterford. Price wants to welcome Barrenger with some sort of gift, so he asks an assistant, "What does he like?" "Fourteen-year-old girls," replies the assistant. "Well," rejoins Price, "give him something else. Let’s try to get out of this town in one piece. Give him half a 28-year-old girl."
It’s not long before the film’s writer Joe White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) arrives in Waterford. White, a playwright who is working on his first film, must figure out some way of writing around the seemingly insurmountable problem of there being no old mill. At one point, White threatens to quit and the producer offers him Associate Producer credit. White asks one of the crew members, "What’s Associate Producer credit?" "It’s what you give your secretary instead of a raise," is the reply.
Eventually the film’s leading lady, Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker), shows up in Waterford. She meets Joe White and recites a few of his lines she particularly likes: "Look at the mill, Frank. Look at the way it goes around. Half the time the darned wheel’s under water, but still it rises up, Frank. It rises up as high as it can go!"
Joe White hasn’t been in Waterford long before he meets perky Ann Black (Rebecca Pidgeon), who runs the town’s book shop and community theater. Joe and Ann fall for each other immediately, but when Ann goes to Joe’s hotel room, she finds him with the nude Claire. Joe explains to Ann that he was just in the process of turning Claire down, telling her he has met someone else. Then Joe asks Ann, "Do you believe that?" "I do if you do," answers Ann. "But it’s absurd," Joe responds. "So is our electoral process," says Ann, "but we still vote."
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