When overly-enthusiastic Barney Panofsky promises the love of his life that he’d do anything for her, she chastises him for his grand and unrealistic gesture. “Life is made of little moments,” she tells him. Unfortunately, there are very few little moments in Barney’s Version; it’s a collection of big, important life events that are meaningless without the lives they punctuate.
Barney’s Version suffers from the same problem as the Harry Potter films: It’s a lovingly made adaptation of a book that chokes on all the material the filmmakers couldn’t bear to leave out. The entire life of a man – in this case, Barney Panofsky, played by Paul Giamatti – is a fine subject for a novel, but a tight fit for a two-hour film without some sharp editing. In trying to include everything from the novel, the film loses any chance at depth or focus. It’s tough to care about someone dying when they’ve only been on screen for five minutes, or a marriage falling apart when one character is a cardboard caricature, but Barney’s Version serves up tragedy after tragedy, deaths and weddings and adultery and more death.
Barney’s first wife, played by Rachel Lefevre, has barely five minutes of screen time before shuffling off, and is talked about more often than she is talked to. While it’s the beginning of a film full of one-sided relationships, it’s a fairly effective bit of storytelling – things have happened to produce this less-than-ideal union, and people are dealing with it. It also introduces Barney’s best friend Boogie, a talented and self-destructive writer and addict who sends slop to his publisher in order to avoid letting anyone see his real work.
But from there, things start to slip. Barney’s second wife, played by Minnie Driver, is a horrid harpy, rich, vain, and selfish. Driver is fun to watch, as she embraces the ridiculous caricature of the character – she seems to be auditioning for a 1970s Woody Allen movie – but there’s not a single moment where she appears likeable, nor is there any scene in which Barney shows any emotional attachment to her. There’s a certain amount of logic to the portrayal – the film is Barney’s recollection of his life, and he would undoubtedly remember his second wife unfavourably. But the notion of Barney as an unreliable narrator is never explored – there’s no narration at all, only flashbacks – and Driver’s performance is still out of whack with the rest of the film.
The highlight, and heart, of Barney’s Version is his relationship with his third wife, Miriam (Rosamund Pike), who he meets at his second wedding. Giamatti and Pike have great chemistry, and it’s endearing to see the normally gruff Barney come out of his shell and expose his heart. It’s easy to support his would-be cheating, too, since his wife is an utterly horrible person with no human emotions whatsoever. But once Barney and Miriam finally get together, the story loses steam thanks to the same problem that deflated the drama the drama of his second marriage: Miriam is as perfect as Barney’s second wife was horrible.
Miriam is kind, intelligent, selfless, patient, and supportive, remaining faithful in the face of Barney’s increasingly boorish behaviour. It would appear that she never did a single thing wrong, and what few bad moments she may have had were doubtless caused by Barney being an ass. As before, this makes sense if Barney’s Version is meant to be Barney’s personal reflection of his life, but in the absence of any commentary or insight into his character, Miriam turns into a tragically flat character lacking even Minnie Driver’s ridiculous flair.
Stuck in the middle of Barney’s love life is the story of his best friend, Boogie. He returns briefly for Barney’s second marriage, then for a scene with would appear to be integral to both the story and Barney’s character. After a fight with Barney, Boogie disappears. Did Barney kill him and hide the body, or did Boogie just disappear and succumb to his own demons? While the mystery is eventually solved (first subtly and satisfactorily, then in agonizingly obvious fashion with slow-mo, flashback, and voiceover), it’s hard to care much about it, given Boogie’s lack of meaningful character and backstory. Boogie is a talented writer, a drug addict, and Barney’s best friend, but that’s all we know. Barney reminds him of the many times he came to his friend’s aid, but we’ve never seen them, or even heard of them, until the moment they become dramatically significant. Barney later mourns Boogie’s absence, but the audience can’t miss someone that never seemed all that significant to begin with.
Barney’s friend Leo suffers a similar fate: He appears briefly at the beginning of the film, and then seems to be a significant factor in Barney’s life later on, but between the age-effect makeup and the fact hasn’t been on screen for more than an hour, it’s tough to even remember who he is.
Barney’s Version ultimately feels like a clip show episode of a long-running TV series. If you’ve watched the show for years, you can watch all the big moments with an understanding of the backstory. But if you’ve never seen a single episode, it’s just a meaningless collection of people you don’t know doing important things. I can’t say how faithful Barney’s Version is to Mordecai Richler’s book, but a love of the original may be the only way to truly enjoy the film: If you know the scenes and stories that I don’t, you might love the movie. There are many things to enjoy – the performances are strong all around, and Paul Giamatti is misanthropically delightful as the lead – and it certainly feels like it was made out of an affection for the book. But the story needed either a sharper edit – removing the Boogie storyline could have strengthened it considerably – or far more room to tell it, like a 6-part HBO miniseries.