The Substance of Fire

Oy.  Maybe 1996's THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE worked better on stage.  Ron Rifkin reprises his role from the Jon Rubin Baitz play, and appropriately dominates this story of a publishing magnate's disintegration into dementia.  Sarah Jessica Parker also returns, playing his daughter.  The journey to the screen was rather bumpy, to say the least.  A consistently frustrating, dramatically inert, off putting, and forgettable movie that is not so much a Holocaust piece as a tedious family drama.  With a patriarch who garners little sympathy.  But the greater sin is that he's just tiresome.

Isaac Geldhart (Rifkin), a survivor of the German occupation during World War II, has led a publishing company that proudly releases "important" books about morbid and arcane subjects.  By the '90s, such audiences are dwindling, and his company is close to ruin.  His son Aaron (Tony Goldwyn), the only offspring who decided to work with dad, repeatedly tries to get him to publish something more contemporary and hip, that would save the business.  One such offering is a trashy novel by Aaron's lover.  Isaac rejects the novel, perhaps rightly, as unworthy of the company name, opting instead for a Holocaust tome with meticulously crafted binding - one which will sell for $200.  Aaron believes, also rightly, that this will spell doom.

Issac's daughter Sarah (Parker), one plays a character on a children's television program, and other son Martin (Timothy Hutton), an instructor at Vassar, are dragged into the crisis, forced to take sides. Where will their loyalties ultimately lie?  Isaac will flail in frustration, perhaps also for Aaron's homosexuality and his other kids' seeming arrested development.  Even at his lowest, the patriarch wears tailored suits, wondering aloud why Martin "dresses like Paul Bunyan."

If the entire film had been about the company struggle, it may have been a better opportunity to learn more about each character.  To live and breathe with them in a central, focused crisis.  Instead, director Daniel J. Sullivan and Baitz (who adapted his play) extend the scenario far beyond, leading to a series of scenes in which Issac becomes colder and crueler to his family and employees in the aftermath of his failed business.  These scenes might have been powerful, but are rather either abrupt or of the TV movie variety. The film fails to incorporate the Holocaust or the realities of the publishing business with any comprehension or interest. Either subject should be fodder for strong cinema.

The screenplay also, in its attempts to flesh out the other characters, creates several pointless scenes, as when Sarah botches a gnocchi dinner for her boyfriend and Martin.  The entire movies reeks of 1990s "cozy drama", another Miramax award seeker.  The good performances from all don't save it.  Joseph Vitarelli's insipid score nearly sinks it.

If I described everything that occurs in THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE, it might sound decent.  I was thankful for a film with this theme not to fill its running time with lots of flashbacks, and that the emotions are often held in check was realistic for these characters. But whether it's Sullivan's uninspired direction or Baitz's lackluster script that sent this movie into obscurity is subject to debate.  How a film with such a fiery character with so much history does nothing compelling enough to make us really care is a shame.  As is that final scene.