Cast: Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Hannah Taylor Gordon, Michael Jeter, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Liev Schreiber, Nina Siemaszko
Director: Peter Kassovitz
Producers: Marcia Garces Williams, Steven Haft
Screenplay: Peter Kassovitz & Didier Decoin, based on the novel by Jurek Becker
Cinematography: Elemer Ragalyi
Music: Edward Shearmur
U.S. Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Robin Williams is probably best known for his comic aptitude, and some of his most auspicious motion picture endeavors - Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, and The Birdcage - have effectively focused his ability to make an audience laugh. In recent years, however, Williams has increasingly become involved in dramas. While straight roles are nothing new for the actor and he has had some success with them (especially Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting, for which he won a Best Support Actor Oscar), they are not his forte. Williams' dramatic range is extremely limited, and, on those occasions when he ventures outside of it, the results can be painful. Jakob the Liar is an example of this. Williams is seriously miscast, and his presence in the movie damages its credibility and effectiveness.
The film begins "somewhere in Poland" during the winter of 1944. The tide has turned against Germany, and the Russians are beginning to drive them back towards Berlin. Trapped in a Polish ghetto for Jews and facing illness, starvation, and the fear of death and deportation, Jakob (Williams) is one of many struggling to find a reason to live. One evening while detained at Gestapo headquarters, he overhears a radio broadcast announcing a Russian victory. Upon returning to the ghetto, he spreads the news, and his fellow captives believe he has a radio - a possession forbidden by the Nazis upon pain of death. Soon, Jakob is making up news of Allied victories to bolster the spirits of those in the ghetto. He also takes an orphan girl, Lina (Hannah Taylor-Gordon), into his house and hides her from the Germans. However, when the Gestapo learns of the supposed radio, they elevate the pressure on the Jews, and Jakob must decide whether to give himself up or allow the increased persecution to continue.
Once, nearly all movies made about the Holocaust, whether fictional or documentaries, were somber, serious productions. The reason is obvious - the mass murder of millions of people is nothing to take lightly. Jakob the Liar becomes the second motion picture in as many years to adopt a less ponderous tone. It is possible to include issues of redemption and salvation in a good Holocaust movie (Schindler's List is a prime example), but it's a difficult, thorny road to travel. The line between exploitation and effective drama is a thin one in this area, and Peter Kassovitz's Jakob the Liar crosses it. This vaguely distasteful movie uses the Holocaust as a plot device to generate emotions that the script does not earn. Kassovitz and Williams force a tragedy into a feel-good mold, making every emotion seem calculated. While I won't go so far as to say that I found Jakob the Liar's use of the Holocaust to be repugnant, it's definitely questionable. Some might call this the American version of Life Is Beautiful; there certainly is a synergy. However, while both films have thematic similarities, the 1999 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner possessed an emotional impact that Jakob the Liar lacks. (To be fair to Kassovitz, his picture was in production at the same time as Life Is Beautiful, so it's not a copycat effort. In fact, this is a remake. The original was a 1974 East German effort.)
While Williams' performance is shaky, the rest of the cast is solid. As Lina, Hannah Taylor-Gordon is effective; her character becomes the emotional fulcrum of the film - she seems real and frightened. Liev Schreiber does a good job as Mischa, a dim bulb who wants to be involved in the resistance movement that is developing as a result of Jakob's "radio bulletins." Alan Arkin is Frankfurter, a Jew who believes that the radio should be destroyed, and Bob Balaban is Jakob's cowardly best friend, who is compelled to one act of heroism. Veteran actor Armin Mueller-Stahl plays a doctor who encourages Jakob to continue lying because his words are giving the Jews a reason to live. Incidentally, Mueller-Stahl also appeared in the first film version of Jakob the Liar.
With Jakob the Liar coming in the wake of last year's Patch Adams, one has to wonder whether Williams has committed himself to lending his presence only to movies steeped in nauseating amounts of heavy-handed manipulation. The screenplay for Jakob the Liar feels like a cobbled-together group of clichés about the Holocaust. At times, the dialogue is almost painful. (Sample line: "Hunger for hope may be worse than hunger for food. I have to feed them something.") Events have been heavily sanitized. The death count is low, the Nazis come across like cartoon bullies, and the ghetto doesn't seem like a bad place to live.
In contrast to all of the recent documentaries and serious dramas about this period of history, Jakob the Liar is almost an affront - an obvious attempt to make a few dollars by combining Williams' box office clout with a maudlin melodrama about hope shining in darkness. Sadly, there probably is an audience for this film - those who like to pretend that the Holocaust wasn't as bad as the historical record indicates. Although it's not the classic its backers would have us believe, Life Is Beautiful at least understood that the Holocaust was a terrible event, and any feel-good moments should be seen in that context. Jakob the Liar, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care.
© 1999 James Berardinelli