Romancefest 3: Sadiefest - A Fish Called Wanda

A FISH CALLED WANDA is yet another entry in my on-going list of movies everyone else has seen that I hadn’t seen for the longest time. To be fair, I’ve seen parts of WANDA over the years, and remember it being around when I was a kid, but I never actually sat down to watch it from beginning to end. Now that I’ve seen it, I can scratch it off the short list of movies that cause people to remark in shock and disbelief, “You haven’t seen that?”

Anyway, it’ll come as no surprise to anyone reading this that of course I found A FISH CALLED WANDA to be as funny and charming as everyone else in the universe. I feel a little dumb sitting here writing about how good a movie is that everyone already loves. What more can I say that hasn’t already been said?

In case there is someone else out there who still hasn’t seen it, I should say A FISH CALLED WANDA is a farce about a British lawyer (John Cleese, who also wrote the screenplay) who finds himself entangled in the schemes of an American thief and con-woman (Jamie Lee Curtis) after a London jewel heist goes wrong. The mastermind of the heist (Tom Georgeson) is betrayed and arrested, to be represented in court by Cleese, and his accomplices fumble and plot in various attempts to get their hands on the missing loot.

The remaining thieves include Kevin Kline as an American pseudo-intellectual tough guy with a jealous streak and an inferiority complex and Michael Palin as a stuttering animal lover who particularly loves his aquarium full of fish and finds himself tasked with the murder of a little old lady (Patricia Hayes) who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You might wonder what any of this has to do with romance, so I’ll tell you. Curtis’ character is willing to do anything and anyone in order to get her hands on the jewels, so most of her time is spent hopping in and out of beds and cheap costumes in an effort to control the men in her life. Luckily for Curtis this is almost easier done than said, since she is the strongest character in the movie and all of the men she finds herself going up against are dimwits. Eventually she finds herself seducing Cleese’s lawyer character, and although he has his fair share of moments of buffoonery, he is the only one who is even close to a match for her.

The romance between the two, while based on lies and manipulations, does manage to play off as sweet and believable. Although Curtis is double crossing criminal, she earns the audience’s sympathy as we see she’s easily too good for the situation she has found herself in. Similarly, though Cleese is stuffy and repressed, we sympathize with him because we see how he’s put-upon and taken for granted by his monstrous wife (Maria Aitken) and daughter (Cynthia Cleese, real life daughter of John).

Of course Kline and Palin are also memorable. Kline blusters and hams his way through comic scene after comic scene, always managing to completely destroy Curtis’ attempts at delicate plotting, either with his lack of intellect or his misplaced jealousy. Palin is more subtle, despite the exaggerated stutter, as the more “quiet” member of the den of thieves, simmering with indignation while going about his sordid affairs. When characters like these butt heads, you get famous scenes, like the one in which Kline threatens the beloved inhabitants of Palin’s aquarium.

So, now I’ve seen A FISH CALLED WANDA. I don’t know what took me so long, but I’m glad I do stuff like make lists of movies and then force myself to watch them, because if I didn’t the list of things I haven’t seen would never shrink.

Sadie Says:

A FISH CALLED WANDA is one of those movies I never tire of. I remember being terribly homesick when living abroad in the Czech Republic, so periodically I'd pop this sucker in, chocolate Milka bar and Pilsner in hand, and revel in the english language. It's one that I can't think of anything I would do to change it and holds up over time. Serious entertainment. Unfortunately, the sequel FIERCE CREATURES doesn't do any justice to the original. If you like Monty Python anything, you'll appreciate this movie in all of its glory.