Strangeness

Chris Penn?

Wasn't it a very hot day? That would tend to explain increasing craziness. That and the need to have some sort of story arc. And drink is drink, after all. The two couples you mention have both just gone through some pretty traumatic stuff, which could be why they freak out somewhat.

Chris Penn just gets so wound up by, like, you know, women, man, that he snaps. Quite straightforward I think.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

Well I don't see it as being strange that is the bit between those two couples who start face painting. Don't forget that the wife of one pair works as a clown for kid's parties. It's part of her job and Julianne Moore is a painter...

If you see the film carefully however that there is an element of strangeness as you call it in the film. Like there is Robert Downey Jr. who works as a Hollywood makeup artist and there's that bizarre scene where he takes photographs of his wife modelling as a bloody victim and then Chris Penn's wife is a stay at home mom who works part time as a phone sex operator. There is an element of the grotesque and perverse already in the work that some of these characters do. It's part of the element of self-reflexitivity, calling attention to the levels of performance and role playing people do in their normal life and how cinema functions in reflecting them.

It's a classic Altman theme.

As for Chris Penn's senseless outburst of violence, he's a very repressed character throughout the film and obviously feels a little impotent because of his wife's bizarre part time job and more so because he can't support both of them enough that she doesn't have to do the job. It's very disturbing and sudden but violence in Altman's films are often like that.


"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes