Susan Granger’s review of “SIMPATICO” (Fine Line Features)
Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte, Sharon Stone, and Albert Finney try valiantly but even their compelling performances can’t effectively elevate this somber, slowly paced screen adaptation of Sam Shepard’s 1994 play about friendship and betrayal set against the backdrop of high-stakes horseracing. Written by David Nicholls and Matthew Warchus, a British theatrical director who makes his debut as a screen director, it’s deeply symbolic, filled with bitter, rambling ruminations about corruption. Jeff Bridges plays a multi-millionaire horse-breeder in Lexington, Kentucky, who – in the midst of selling a champion thoroughbred stallion named Simpatico – is interrupted by a phone call from a boozy bar-fly, an old friend, Nick Nolte, who threatens to expose a racetrack scam they pulled when they were young, involving Bridges’ now-dissolute, unhappy wife, Sharon Stone, and Albert Finney, as a former horse-racing commissioner whom they slandered and vilified. Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) emerges as the most likable character, playing a supermarket check-out clerk who serves as an awkward, reluctant intermediary between the overwrought antagonists who share this gritty, guilty secret. There are lots of flashbacks, skillfully integrated by editor Pascquale Buba, in which Liam Waite, Shawn Hatosy and Kimberly Williams play the trio of principals in the ’70s, their ambitious, younger years. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, Simpatico is a sly, melancholy, bittersweet 6, revolving around vindication and vengeance.
