By Curt Schleier
KING OF CALIFORNIA is a rare show business occurrence, when the stars align and what could have been a ho-hum film becomes something special. The heavenly bodies in this case are Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood, and both are at the absolute top of their game. Their performances alone are worth the price of admission – even at today’s inflated rates. Ironically, it’s Douglas, the more experienced of the two, with an Oscar and dozens of films to his credit, who has an easier time of it.
He plays Charlie, a Don Quixote-ish character, fresh out of two years in a mental institution. He’s convinced that an 18th Century Spanish missionary’s cache of doubloons lies buried underneath a Costco. Bearded, unkempt he plays the role appropriately over the top, determined to find it. “Sometimes I wake up and don’t know if I exist,” he tells his daughter, Miranda. “Maybe if I do this I will exist.”
Miranda (Wood) is just 17 years old and has been on her own the last two years. Her mother, a crazy hand model, abandoned them years ago. Charlie is a jazz musician who tried to commit suicide and was only saved when his daughter barged in when she heard him gasping for air. Yet even without parents, Miranda has managed to hold her life together. She quit school and got a job at McDonald’s – but was a neat and orderly life turns upside down when her father returns.
She’s torn. “Things were easier when Charles was gone, a lot easier,” she says. “In fact, they were wonderful.”
On the other hand, as imperfect as he is, Charles is her father. Wood plays her character with remarkable maturity for so young an actress in a wonderfully understated way and in perfect counterpoint to Charles literal and figurative craziness.
Miranda doesn’t want to encourage her father, who has a history of wild (and failed) schemes. But he gives up his base – a jazz musician who pawns his instrument –so she can use the money to reclaim her car. Okay, Charlie was responsible for losing it in the first place, but, still, that’s paternal love.
Ironically, all the clues indicate that Charlie may actually be right. They hatch a plan to get in, but when Costco alarms go off, Miranda tries to run. Charlie stops her: “Breaking and entering makes everything different, livelier.”
I’m not going to tell you if there really is a pot of doubloons at the end of Charlie’s
Rainbow, but suffice it to say that he belies “All my life I’ve believed I’ve been made to do something special.”
He does. And so did auteur Mike Cahill, who wrote the script. But the real kudos go to the actors. The expressions on their faces alone – wild-eyed enthusiasm on his, resignation on hers – tell you as much about the characters as the dialogue. Quite frankly, I think that Douglas fellow has a future in this business.