In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, Keanu Reeves can'ttell if he's having sex with Charlize Theron or Connie Nielsen thanks to satanic meddling in The Devil's Advocate!
While no one who has actually sat through the film beginning to end could consider 1997's The Devil's Advocate to be a masterpiece, it's certainly a movie with a lot of charms. For a fairly big budget studio film, it has a lot of stuff in it one would be hard-pressed to find in a similarly budgeted studio film in the year 2020. With the encroachment of the new millennium and all the end times panic that brought with it, studios actually went devil crazy in the late 90s, churning out flicks like End of Days, The Ninth Gate, The Prophecyfranchise,Stigmata, and many more.Twenty-plus years later, however, The Devil's Advocate still kinda stands head and shoulders above the rest, thanks in no small part to its pedigree.
Directed by Taylor Hackford—that lucky son of a bitch married to my boo Helen Mirren—the film is trashy, but with a high gloss Hollywood finish that eludes many of the other films mentioned in the above paragraph. The film is loosely based on the 1990 novel of the same by longtime V.C. Andrews ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, which was pitched as being "about a law firm in New York that represents only guilty people, and never loses." The book was optioned almost immediately, with Joel Schumacher attached to direct with Brad Pitt in the co-leading role of hotshot lawyer Kevin Lomax. However, it fell apart when Schumacher couldn't convince a big enough name star to play John Milton, the head of the law firm who also, uh oh, happens to be the devil.
Following the media circus around the OJ Simpson trial in the mid-90s, the project was revived, this time with Hackford brought on as director. He aggressively pursued Al Pacino for the role of Milton, though the actor was allegedly dissatisfied with the script.After having screenwriter and famous script doctor Tony Gilroy take several passes at the script, Pacino eventually agreed to star, with Keanu Reeves turning down an $11 million payday to make Speed 2 in order to take the role of Kevin Lomax. Greenlit with a budget of $60 million—nearly 1/4 of which went to Pacino alone—the film finally went into production in 1996.
If you've somehow never seen The Devil's Advocate, the film centers around idealistic young defense attorney Kevin Lomax, who is given an offer to come work for one of the most prominent law practices in New York City run by John Milton. Milton sees a lot of promise in Lomax, who is a fast riser through the company, working his way up to Milton's right hand man much to the chagrin of more senior lawyers like Eddie Barzoon (a pre-"the troubles" Jeffrey Jones). As it turns out, Milton is actually the devil and Lomax is his long-lost son,with Miltonpulling strings to ensure that everything will go according to plan and Lomax will eventually father the antichrist.
Two relatively unknown actresses—at the time anyway—were cast in the two most prominent female roles, with South African beauty Charlize Theron (in her fourth feature film role) taking on the role of Lomax's wife Mary Ann and Dutch delight Connie Nielsen (in her first American film) playing law office temptress Christabella. Throughout the film's second act,Mary Ann begins a journey toward insanity as she is manipulated from afar by Milton, who is planning to hook his son up with Christabella, who is actually his half-sister and whom Milton plans to be the mother of the antichrist. It's all stupidly complicated when written out like this, but it makes at least a little more sense in the context of the film.
The first inkling we get that this is where things are headed comes just past the one hour mark in the needlessly long two hour and twenty four minute flick. Lomax returns home from a long day at the office to be greeted by his horned-up wife. As the two get down to business, Mary Ann begins to morph into Christabella, with Reeves landing the rather notable distinction of shooting one sex scene with two different actresses—no wonder he turned down Speed 2...
Now, digging into the scene revealsone of the most fundamental flaws of Milton's plan which is, essentially, that he's already got a pretty damn hot wife. You can chalk this up to a gross oversight on the part of the casting director, but the thought that any man would abandon Charlize Theron for any woman is just a little outside the bounds of believability. That's not a knock against Connie Nielsen, who is also stunning, but it might have been a touch more believable had they cast someone as Mary Ann who could have more convincingly played a frumpy housewife. Maybe that's why Milton eventually uses his power to drive Mary Ann insane, because despitethe moral quagmire presented to an otherwise happily married man, it was a touch naive on Satan's part to think any man would willingly ditch Charlize Theronto bang his half-sister.
I know what you're thinking: Why look for logic in a film called The Devil's Advocate about the devil running a highly respected law firm? It's not that, I promise, it's more about exposing the hypocrisy of Hollywood casting. True, not casting Charlize Theron in the role might have cheated us out of her full frontal nude debut, but it might have made more sense to cast someone even half as attractive in the role.Finding the right person for the role doesn't ever seem to be a consideration for anyone making films and that less-than-grand tradition has made it more difficult for anyone in the industry to claim plausible deniability.
As an interesting side note, Theron initially declined the role as she wasn't comfortable with the amount of nudity it required, which is the exact reason she turned down Showgirls two years earlier. Perhaps they should have taken that as an opportunity to look for another actress, if for no other reason than it might have helped them avoid the very problem pointed out here today. The situation would have been identical if you swap Charlize and Connie's roles, as well. The only way this plot point works is if Mary Ann isn't impossibly hot.Then again, as mentioned earlier, that's really the least of The Devil's Advocate's problems.
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