Dialogue Problems Make ‘Deja Vu’ Difficult To Fathom

Henry Jaglom is as idiosyncratic a film director as has ever attempted to document his own life.

Not that he’s a documentary filmmaker. Documentary filmmakers attempt to capture how life really is.

Jaglom is more interested in capturing life as he sees it.

The distinction might seem to be a fine one, but it’s really not.

For more than 20 years, Jaglom has been churning out films that, as he likes to say, “try to essentially look at the interior life, the life of feelings and longings, dreams and relationships, the never-ending human search for love and meaning and fulfillment.”

Can’t fault that. Unfortunately, Jaglom’s “style” plays out all too often on the big screen like an extended series of home movies.

For example, Jaglom filmed “Always (But Not Forever),” his exploration of the pain of divorce, in his own home and filled it with his friends and former lovers. In “Someone to Love,” he ambushed a theater full of acquaintances (who thought they were attending a Valentine’s Day party) to make a documentary-like film about the problem of finding… well, you get the drift.

And in “Eating,” he essentially filled a house full of his women friends and had them all talk about their food obsessions.

These films, and the others that I’ve seen, had at least two things in common.

The first: each had no plot. Instead of starting at point A and working in linear fashion through conflict and connection, discourse and disruption, Jaglom’s films seem to be as narratively static as his camera often is.

The second: Jaglom’s scripts seem to be less written than improvised. Even the decent actors that he manages to cast (from Orson Welles to Vanessa Redgrave) fumble around, often speaking over someone else and sometimes even at cross-purposes.

So here’s one good thing about Jaglom’s new film “Deja Vu”: It does have a plot - a good, old romantic plot, in fact.

An American woman named Dana (Foyt, Jaglom’s wife and the co-screenwriter) travels to Jerusalem on business. An older woman approaches her, tells her a sad story of lost love, gives her a jewelled broach to wear and then disappears.

Attempting to find her, Dana travels first to Paris and then, on an ostensible whim, to Dover, England. There she meets Sean (Stephen Dillane), who shares with her the feeling that they’ve somehow met before. Sparks ignite.

But when they travel back to London, Dana returns to her fiance (Michael Brandon), Sean to his wife (Glynis Barber) and they both prepare to resume their individual lives. Until, would you believe it?, they discover that they are vacationing at the same country home.

If nothing else, “Deja Vu” offers another variation on the old cliche about the path to true love never running smooth.

And, actually, Jaglom does a decent job of keeping on task, despite the various scenery changes (Israel to France to England) and despite the fact that various characters come and go for no apparent reason.

He still hasn’t solved the dialogue problem, though. Watching even skilled actors try to carry on pointed conversations without having the written word to rely on - assuming that is what they are trying to do - can be painful. At best, it’s merely a curiosity.

In the end, “Deja Vu” may be the most satisfying film that Jaglom has ever made. However you feel, though, you’re not likely to love it as much as he obviously does.

“Deja Vu” **-1/2 Locations: Lincoln Heights Cinemas. Credits: Co-written (with Virginia Foyt) and directed by Henry Jaglom, starring Victoria Foyt, Stephen Dillane, Michael Brandon, Noel Harrison, Anna Massey, Glynis Barber, Vanessa Redgrave Running time: 1:56 Rating: PG-13