I can see why a lot of people have been irritated by this tribute to 'Some Like It Hot'. Its theatrical hammery can be absurdly precious, its attempts at slapstick bungled, its comic situations tortuously contrived. The film proclaims itself as a farce, and yet the mechanics aren't tight enough (a hint of studio interference?); too many characters and situations are introduced at convenient moments to sustain farce's exquisite suspense, surprise and inevitability. An air of complacent superiority breezes through the whole thing.
I loved it. The film it most reminded me of, despite its echoes of Beckett, silent comedy and 'Bullets over Broadway', was 'Topsy-Turvy'. There is the same fruity dialogue and opportunity for ostentatious thesping. The theatrical milieu allows for a suspension of realism - like Leigh's film, there is no attempt to faithfully recreate the period; rather 'The Impostors' is like a play of the period, filmed against a flat background with appropriate signifiers (clothes, music etc.). This idea that the narrative is not 'real' (ie as a narrative) is suggested by the closing revelation of the movie set, removing a plot full of people playing other people to another level.
Of course, this kind of closing self-reflexivity, this shattering of illusions, is pure Fellini, and the ship setting reminds us surely of 'Ship Of Fools', that ironically melancholy portrait of a doomed society. 'Impostors', despite the final burst of the carnivalesque, is too controlled to be a Felliniesque extravaganza; too in thrall to the idea of plot, and the way plot reflects the metaphysics of action; but there is a variety of character; an impulse towards mocking melodrama and the picaresque; a feel for the grotesque and chaotic, a sheer love of role-playing and transformation, that Il Maestro would possibly have enjoyed.
It would be reading too much into 'Impostors' to see the ship and its passengers, travelling from Prohibition America to Paris as in any way allegorical - the characters and situations are pure stage types - the impoverished gold-digging mother, the suicidal divorcee, the deposed Ruritanian queen, the Teutonic manager, the kamikaze revolutionary, the lovesick captain. I don't think they are used to explore a particular political viewpoint or historical interpretation - rather, they allow for a wide-ranging analysis of the conflict between acting and role.
The film's impulse is to mock even it's own plot, so that resolution is hardly a morally satisfactory dividing of the spoils. The impostors are shown to reveal the wider imposture going on in all levels of society - acting can both expose the fraudulence and help the miserable and betrayed. They move from being outsiders desperate for recognition from society to critics and exposers of society - typically, they save it and are absorbed by it. The film begins with them disrupting reality with their false cafe melodramatics; it ends with them saving marriages, foiling revolution. Acting, once it's recognised as acting, is neutered.
There are three great pleasures in 'Impostors'. First is the acting. Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt are an adorable couple, part Vladimir and Estragon, part Laurel and Hardy (and Beckett was profoundly influenced by silent comedy) - their attempts at acting only further revealing their characters. The post-theory sexualising of the likes of Laurel and Hardy is intimated here - the impostors share a bedroom; they are constantly confronted with aggressive male sexuality; they are never considered as a heterosexual threat - but, appropriately to the period, this is never brought to the surface.
They have some great set-pieces, particularly in the first half (the cakeshop; the denunciation of Jeremy in the pub); their wordy dialogue is deliciously appropriate; their mixture of deadpan and ham a treat. Not all of the cameos come off, but Campbell Scott's absurd manager and Alfred Molina's blustery bad actor are a hoot (is the Hamlet he plays a defining spirit of the film, the anguish over whether to act and be appropriated or interpret and remain free (and hungry)?).
Secondly, the filming. Although most of 'Impostors' is pure farce (and there is far too little of THAT in the cinema nowadays), there is nothing stagy about it. The prologue is shot as delightful silent slapstick, and the smooth shooting is often broken by moments of disruptive handheld immediacy which provide some lovely epiphanies. The repetition of key scenes and moments (eg all the characters staring into the round, porthole -like mirrors) are expertly done.
Best of all is the insanely inventive score, beautifully appropriate to the period, a pastiche of salon, jazz and tango that is witty but also emotionally revealing, creating a real sense of romance and nostalgia, while silly post-modern things are going on on screen.
