Flashbacks of a Fool (R)

Starring Daniel Craig, Clare Forlani, and Harry Eden, “Flashbacks of a Fool” might be an appropriate title, but a bit hard on the main character, Joe Scot (played by Craig), who does surprisingly well in an acting role unlike others have seen him in. Told between two locales- the fast-paced urban niche of Hollywood, Los Angeles and the slow, idyllic English countryside that was his home, “Flashbacks of a Fool“ shows both the past and present of its main character, while giving us a glimpse into the reasons behind the choices that outline his present life.

Opening the movie, we see Joe Scot engaged in a ménage et trois, then are quickly catapulted into his life: he is a down-and-out, successful actor who reaps the salt of his career, his nights spent drinking, experimenting with drugs and seducing women, and his days recovering from the night before. Quickly, though, we see Scot’s life is not as picture perfect as he’d like us to believe: he has problems with the neighbors, gets turned down from an acting job and loses his agent, all within the first 35 minutes of the film.

However, this is not to paint Scot a battle-scarred loser, but to set the stage for a turn of events that will deeply affect and change his life.

Joe’s life takes a surprising turn when his mother calls, and he finds out that his best friend from his youth has died in England, unexpectedly. Craig does a good job at portraying the shock at this, and we surmise that there was much more invested in this memory than just the passing of a friend he hadn’t seen in some time.

The movie then goes back to Scot’s life in the quiet countryside of England, where his best friend, a kid named ‘Boots’ and Scot behave like children do, and the movie continuously rides a fine line between a coming of age story while constantly sandwiched against a tragedy we see hiding in the background. The story in England is well done, showing Scot living with his mother and relatives in the close-knit seaside community. Eden, who plays the young Joe Scot, in particular does a good job at portraying a young man with the whole world in front of him, yet drawn to wrong choices and bad decisions at every turn.

A series of tragedies, including engaging in an affair with a married woman and losing the friendship of Boots in a fight over another girl leave Joe scarred, devastated and alone, casting him out of the quiet niche of his youth and reeling towards his present.

While not answering the question of the what, but the how of Scot’s life, “Flashbacks of a Fool” does a good job setting the stage for Scot to return home to England for the funeral of his friend, deal with his past and confronting his future. What “Flashbacks of a Fool” does well is show in detail what Scot’s life became, what it was like, while letting us make up our own minds of where it will go.

– by Mark Ziobro