The Search For John Gissing
Written and directed by Mike Binder
© Copyright Sunlight Productions, LLC All rights
reserved. Photo by Graham Attwood. Photo may not be used without
permission.
Winner of the Critics Choice Award - Best Feature at Sarasota Film Festival
The Search For John Gissing was an official selection of the following Film Festivals:
- Palm Springs Int'l Film Festival 2002
- U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Aspen 2002
- SXSW Film & Music Conference Austin
- Newport Beach Int'l Film Fest 2002
- Victoria Int'l Film Festival Canada 2002
- Roma International Film Festival 2002
Special thanks to Jack Binder for his help
Photo courtesy of Caroline
In the USA, The Search For John Gissing was an official selection of The American Film Institute AFI Festival, and was shown on Friday, November 9 at the Vogue Theater in Los Angeles, and on Friday December 14, 2001, at the Clarity Screening Room in Beverly Hills.
In London, it was an official selection at Raindance Independent Film Festival on Sunday Oct. 21 and Thursday Oct. 5, 2001.
TSFJG was featured at the Victoria International Film Festival on February 8 and 9, 2002, and was the grand opening gala selection at the Cinequest 2002, on February 21, 2002
LINKS
Official Website of the film "THE SEARCH FOR JOHN GISSING"For further updates, also visit Official Website for Sunlight Productions & Mike Binder
The Review
Reviewed by R. FaeyMarch, 2003
Overall rating: 3 hands
Rickmaniac rating: 3 hands
I'm no particular partisan of farce (broad comedy, improbable plot, ludicrous situations), and The Search for John Gissing is an unabashed farce . But despite my apprehensions, this film had me smiling! (Reports from the film festivals where it's played go even further, citing consistent chuckling punctuated by outbursts of big loud laughs).
It's the story of a young Chicago executive , Matthew Barnes (Mike Binder, who also directed), who's been transferred to his London office to superintend a big merger with a German company. He arrives not knowing that he will actually be replacing the London middle manager who brought him to Britain, John Gissing (Alan Rickman). Gissing, though, is plenty peeved about his imminent ouster and revenges himself by doing whatever he can behind the scenes to sabotage the German deal, his bosses, and Matthew's arrival. After being repeatedly confounded by the unseen Gissing, Matthew eventually locates and confronts him, and subsequently launches a counter-barrage of his own merry pranks. Order is finally restored, the German deal is done, and the principal characters settle into the careers they prefer (or perhaps deserve). Along the way are broad action and characterizations, physical comedy, and good one-liners.
Alan Rickman, in well-tailored suits and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, gets a fair amount of screen time in which he further demonstrates his considerable comic abilities: by turns brusque, beset, distraught, irritated, smug. He's also affecting in a revelatory scene about Gissing's failed marriages, his estranged children, and the fifteen tumultuous years he's given his company. As usual, he dominates the scenes in which he appears.
Rickmanistas will also appreciate Alan stepping lightly down a London street and sliding gracefully (twice!) into his office, furtively escorting the German executives off an elevator (in a scene perhaps intended to evoke Die Hard comparisons), and dancing in a dance studio, where his footwork is as polished as his shoes. Gissing's determined preparation at the office water cooler, prior to making certain claims to corporate territory, could be considered one of the funniest moments in the Rickman film career.
Performances of most of the supporting actors are equally appealing. I especially liked Janeane Garofalo as Matthew's sharp, beleagured wife; Sonya Walger as a sinning "nun" who compromises Matthew; and an over-the-top Angela Pleasance as a dotty German woman who misses the hot times she had with her bullish husband Helmut.
The film is probably doomed as a theatrical release; the corporate-battlefield theme is "so 1990s", and a reference to "the Baghdad office" plays a little facetiously in 2003. Also, the film's light touch isn't outrageous enough (read: violent or smutty) to appeal to the 18- to- 24-year-old male demographic beloved of Hollywood. But The Search for John Gissing deserves to be seen, perhaps on television or via video, as a good example of Anglo-American comic collaboration and ensemble acting. And it's fun, too!
Fausta thanks R. Fahey for the review
