Based on murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s original
movie of the same name, Interview
stars Steve Buscemi — jauntily sporting a multi-hyphenate’s hat as adapter-director — as a
hard-bitten journalist forced to go head-to-head with a pretty starlet played
by Sienna Miller.

Before Van Gogh’s death in 2004, he had planned to remake
three of his films in English, and re-set them in New York
City. In the wake of his murder by an Islamic
extremist, his longtime producing partners, Gijs van de Westelaken and Bruce Weiss,
decided to honor Van Gogh’s memory by enlisting American directors to
collaborate on the films with members of Van Gogh’s original film crew. Buscemi
was the first to commit to the idea, and he chose to remake Interview, while also appearing on
camera.

The noted indie actor stars as pessimistic, world-weary journalist
Pierre Peders. Having made his name as a war reporter, traveling all over the
world and seeing some of the most horrifying sights imaginable, Pierre is understandably
irked at the occupational demotion that he feels he’s received with his
current assignment — a puff-piece profile on up-and-coming TV and movie actress
Katya (Miller, above). The odd-couple pair meet in a chic restaurant (she’s over
an hour late, naturally) and it’s an instant and decidedly spiteful collision
of worlds — Pierre’s serious political focus and Katya’s superficial world of
celebrity. But perhaps all is not as it appears. When Pierre
is slightly injured in a car accident inadvertently caused by Katya (she’s the
proverbial girl who stops traffic), they end up back at Katya’s spacious loft
for a long night of talking, drinking, sparring and strange, embattled intimacy.
Their contentious bickering and verbal chess game — spiked with wit, intrigue and
sexual tension — eventually evolves into a surprising confessional.

Notable films of reference here include Oleanna, for its battle-of-the-sexes sparks, and also the recent Sleuth, costarring Miller’s famous ex,
Jude Law. Interview has brevity on
its side (it clocks in at 83 minutes), and it’s true that sparks fly in
effective fashion, making the film quite watchable in an in-the-moment fashion, but the mix of drinks and philosophy wears a bit thin, and the ego-clash dance becomes a little too literal at one point. Still, Miller is mightily effective in something like this, playing off her off-screen tabloid reputation by toying with and twisting her hair in precious, entitled fashion when she’s late, and just generally vamping it up a bit. You find yourself mostly caught up in Katya‘s game, even if the movie’s final twist — without getting into specifics — doesn’t ring wholly true for the manner in which it assumes Katya wouldn’t take full credit for her ruse.

Interview comes
housed in a regular Amray plastic case, and presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic
widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital soundtrack and optional
English and Spanish subtitles. Supplemental features on the DVD include six
minutes of behind-the-scenes material comprised chiefly of EPK-produced
interviews, as well as a 13-minute featurette that examines the work of
originating Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh; the latter reveals that the American
adaptation includes a plot twist born of a real-life taxi accident head bump
from one of the movie’s Dutch producers. There’s also a full-length director’s
commentary track from Buscemi, and it’s a pretty good chat, if also littered
with a few spoilers. He talks about the spontaneity of production (they blocked sections, but not specific marks) and his preference for a sparse score from Evan Lurie. Make sure you’ve already seen the film before you indulge
his remarks, though. B- (Movie) B (Disc)