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Written by Gregg Shapiro
Feb 24, 2011
Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman shine in “Barney’s Version.” – Paul Giamatti
Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti, who won a Golden Globe for his performance) isn’t the most likeable guy. Married and divorced three times, he is the very definition of unlucky in love.
Barney’s first marriage to pregnant Clara (Rachelle Lefevre) in Rome in the early 1970s ends abruptly after the discovery that he isn’t the father of her stillborn baby and she commits suicide.
Back in Montreal, where his widowed, retired cop father Izzy (Dustin Hoffman) lives, Barney marries again, this time to a well-bred and highly educated woman who is simply identified as the second Mrs. P. (Minnie Driver). But this marriage is doomed from the start for several reasons, not the least of which is that Barney falls helplessly in love with Miriam (Rosamund Pike) at the wedding reception. He even follows her to the train station on his wedding night in lieu of performing his husbandly duties.
Barney’s pursuit of Miriam doesn’t end then and naturally puts quite a strain on his marriage. But Barney’s closest friend in the world, a junkie named Bernard (Scott Speedman) inadvertently supplies Barney with the escape hatch that he needs. Tragically, Bernard also mysteriously disappears, leaving a cloud of suspicion hanging over Barney’s head. As if Barney didn’t have enough trouble, a detective named O’Hearne (Mark Addy) is determined to prove that Barney is responsible for Bernard’s disappearance.
Once free of his second wife, Barney embarks on the greatest romantic relationship of his life with third wife Miriam. Of course, he wouldn’t be Barney Panofsky, head of Truly Unnecessary Productions, if he didn’t find a way to screw it up.
Richard J. Lewis’s film adaptation of the Mordecai Richler novel is a marvelous and refreshing dramatic comedy with exceptional performances, in particular by Giamatti and Pike.
