In Passion of Mind, Moore plays a woman with two names and two lives. In the fast lane of New York City, she is known as Marty, a sleek and savvy literary agent with a meticulous coif and a dragonfly barrette, ruling her world via cell phone. In the pastoral French countryside of Provence, however, she is Marie, a widowed mother of two incessantly gleeful daughters. If you recall, Jane Fonda hit similar notes 20 years ago, in On Golden Pond, proclaiming to Katherine Hepburn her power over L.A., but feeling like a "little fat girl" at her parents' provincial cottage. There's no sweetly gruff, paternal Henry Fonda this time--he's been replaced by two uppity analysts--and, as the beau, acting machine Dabney Coleman has somehow morphed into the extra-squishy duo of Stellan Skarsgard and William Fichtner. But the vibe is the same, except for this tiny technical detail: Unlike psychologically distressed jet-setter Fonda, Moore needs only to fall asleep to be transferred from one wonderful life to another.
So the problem is...?
The somnambulistic conceit is a useful, abstract way to sum up the dilemma of balancing domestic tranquillity with career obsession, but it also crumbles spectacularly upon rudimentary contemplation. If Marty/Marie (whose surname, curiously, is Willis) is suffering so much anguish not knowing which of her lives is real, and which a dream, then why doesn't she just get on a plane and meet herself for lunch in Paris? E-mail, telephone, fax, FedEx...surely both the edgy agent and the motherly book reviewer have heard of these advancements in modern communication.
Despite literally having it all, neither Marty nor Marie is having a particularly easy go of things. In France, she smiles through lonely denial, having lost her husband two years prior. Enter William (Skarsgard), an author and chef sturdy and inoffensive in his Banana Republic finery, flirting with Marie and her daughters in a perfect mating dance, right down to the candlelight dinner in a castle. OK, so that's perfect, and she's miserable. Keep cutting to New York, where Marty is charmed by the boundary-respecting adoration of colleague Aaron (Fichtner), to the point of swallowing his silly malarkey about New York's bridges being beautiful, and, again, she is miserable. Analysts on both sides try to sway her ("See, that's the trouble with you guys, you all think you're real!" she exclaims in a rare moment of levity), and her affairs with both men grow sticky. In France, her matronly friend Jessie (Sinead Cusack) offers the most comfort, but even her kind advice is laced with selfish concerns: "You don't have to give up the whole dream, just the man."
Moore isn't coasting here, and, as aforementioned, the crux of this conflict is interesting, but regardless of how much she writhes in passion or trembles in inner torment, she never really seems vulnerable, and, since everything she has is good, it doesn't seem to matter how she resolves her "conflict." This could be because both her lovers are limp-wristed caricatures (Fichtner's a versatile actor, but under Berliner's helm he plays like a young, castrated Clint Eastwood, mumbling "I'm dangerous" instead of turning her on by proving it). It could also be because, no matter what happens, she holds all the cards and is guaranteed a victory.
On the up side, there are a few nice elements buried in this otherwise dull emotional landscape. It is genuinely moving when we catch occasional glimpses of Marie's soul, symbolized by a stack of short stories, hidden away in a closet. In these moments, the emotions feel real. Unfortunately, much like The Sixth Sense, Passion of Mind is less a spiritual quest than a very self-indulgent gimmick movie that could use a strong shot of inspiration.
