Countess Dracula from Drew Barrymore not... She had to retrain in comedy actresses! I've been here a long time, and some patterns can already be identified. So, I noticed that people warmly accept my texts on films – adaptations of Russian classics or biopics of some famous classics. But the mention of my favorite band - Ukrainians "Fleur" - and there are key musicians Olga Pulatova and Elena Voynarovskaya does not bring me luck, some disadvantages are mostly... Let's see what happens this time! So, Elena Wojnarovskaya has a song "Doppelganger", and when I found out that there is a movie "Doppelganger", and even with one of my favorite actresses - Drew Barrymore - in the title role, I had no doubt that I would watch it!
In fact, the defining factor for me watching Doppelganger was the fact that it came out almost at the same period of Drew’s life, when she starred in one of my favorite films of my life – Poison Ivy. Because Barrymore is, to put it mildly, an uneven actress, and if it was some kind of comedy with her, I would pass by. But the role of the young Barrymore is definitely mine! No, you just think what the hell it was, if at the age of 16-17 years could star in such films as “Poison Ivy” and this “Doppelganger”, and not just “start” in the lead role, but actually demonstrate yourself, show the world your voluptuous and over-the-year intelligent nature! This girl, although in fact, with all due respect, does not fit this word for her, it is better to say “girl”, so this girl is one of those actors who actually plays herself: in this case, an incredibly attractive seducer, who is still in the “forbidden” age, but at the same time dangerous, capable of cruelty and even mental rampage. I don’t want to seem like a bazaar discussing the identity of an outsider — actress Drew Barrymore — but I don’t judge her or mock her. Such girls have always existed, and someone must be like that, I just state the fact: she really was in school years with bodies and without complexes, but it allowed her, like no one else, to play those still cool, to look at with the tongue and secretly wish for which a normal man can not forbid! But then, when the girl became a woman, life turned out so that this actress had to play in all sorts of things, more and more - in comedies, where she, in my opinion, pretty languished, more or less equal to the "average" Hollywood brethren. That’s why today I’m not ready to admire Drew, she’s just a celebrity woman, but her role more than 20 years ago touches me to the core.
But what else is there besides the damn attractive Drew in the movie Doppelganger? After watching this unpopular film, I was convinced that nothing. “Poison Ivy” – from the point of view of purely cinematic, also, of course, is not a masterpiece, but there is at least a cool, from beginning to end, the plot, which allowed this story to have a number of sequels, albeit with other actresses who, believe the fan of this franchise, still better than Drew, did not cope. And "Doppelganger" is a decent mush, and it is not surprising that almost nowhere on the Internet, even in English, you can find a complete synopsis. We don’t know what the authors wanted to tell us! And given that here violated some unknown to me, as an absolute non-horrorist, canons of the genre (so say very many viewers), the film causes antipathy to this audience. Here is the old joke of the notorious Ostap Ibrahimovic: will have to retrain ... "Poison Ivy" failed at the box office. "Doppelganger", with such and such a scenario, and completely passed the box office. And happiness seemed so possible: Drew could become an artist with a unique role. After all, usually villains look like demonic witches, and here - a pretty "neighborhood girl" with the soul of Dolores Gaze, better known as Lolita.
For those who have not yet watched and read my text, I will finally briefly outline the synopsis in order to perhaps discourage the desire to watch such a weak movie. I, out of love for young Drew and for the work of Wojnarovskaya, who wanted to write the song “Doppelganger”, would watch the film to the end, even if it was a thousand times worse than it is. Why is it for you?
The film begins with the murder of his mother, tightly wrapped in a headscarf and licked by Drew, in a truly barbaric and unaesthetic way: a healthy one with such a cutter, and for whatever reason. Then this cleaver and this image of Drew appears and disappears throughout the film, to change from time to time to the image of “Drew is a cute neighbor’s girl” or the image of “Drew is a damn cute candy.” And everything would be fine – I repeat, from this constant change of images and even from the blood periodically oozing in Drew in different parts of his body, it was possible to concoct a magnificent thriller, all the vicissitudes of which would have a realistic explanation. In the end, everything could be reduced to the fact that it has not just a split personality, but a disintegration, etc.: psychiatry knows people living with 6 personalities! Viewers would first think that Doppelganger - a ghostly double in the view of the gloomy German romantics at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries - kills instead of a girl guilty only of premature puberty. And then it turned out that this was just a manifestation of her mental illness. And what about blood - well, there are specific diseases: endometriosis, hemophilia ... And even the image of a nerd in glasses, sheltering Drew, who is fugitive from justice (and rather from compulsory treatment in a mental hospital), is not so primitive and unambiguous, because he, like Marty McFly, hates when he is teased with cackling, hinting at his cowardice; he really loves Drew, no matter how strange, to put it mildly, she is, and is ready to save her from her own dark sides of the personality, even from external enemies ... And these enemies did not hesitate to wait: since Drew is the second Lolita, there must be an obsessed dad who follows Lolita on his heels! But that's why in the end it took this American parody of Fantomas, and this banal creaky house with ghosts at midnight, and finally, these nauseating Aliens?! In short, if you are not such a fan of the young Barrymore as I am, and are not interested in doppelgangers, do not watch this old forgotten film: it is forgotten for good, you will not lose anything.
It doesn't matter from me.
6 out of 10