The first half of this film seemed funny and promising.  When Kevin Kline appeared, the film got funnier. But at the halfway point of this 105 minute film, the plot began to unravel and by the end of The Extra Man, I no longer cared about these characters.

Louis Ives (Paul Dano) imagines himself as a character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, and even hears the dulcet tones of a suave narrator chronicling his life. When he loses his job teaching English, he moves to New York to try to become a writer. He is hired by an environmental journal and becomes smitten with co-worker Mary (Katie Holmes), a passionate environmentalist with a boyfriend. Louis also rents a room from eccentric Henry Harrison (Kline) who earns his keep as the “extra” man at dinner parties given by wealthy older women. Louis is charmed by the charismatic Henry, who teaches him how to sneak into the opera and charm rich older women. But Louis also explores his attraction to cross dressing with Katherine (Patti D’Arbanville).

Kline is dazzling and funny here, and it is easy to see why Louis is so taken with Henry. Henry has all the best lines in the film and Kline makes the most of them. Henry describes himself as ‘”to the right of the pope” and opines that he is sure that the environmental journal that employs Louis “is just a front for pornography.” Despite stating his disapproval of women and sex, his habit of dancing around the apartment and his affection for his sleep mask, Kline manages to make Henry enigmatic and likeable, and not in the least bit foppish. Paul Dano gives a quiet and understated performance as the uptight dreamer Louis, and is a good foil for Kline. When Louis does not believe that Henry urinated in the street, Henry explains how to urinate in the street without calling attention to the activity. Kline’s intonations and physicality as he demonstrates this to Louis are hilarious, made even more hilarious by Louis’ admiration. The early scenes of Kline and Dano are the strongest in the film. But Dano does not do as well in the scenes without Kline. His character is not interesting enough and he is not charismatic enough to carry his part of the film. Louis’s foray into cross dressing is not especially funny and does not really make sense.

Patti D’Arbanville does a wonderful job playing the dominatrix who specializes in spanking cross dressers and her few scenes with Louis are oddly touching. This relationship is much more interesting than Louis’s relationship with Mary (Holmes), but unfortunately, Holmes gets more screen time than D’Arbanville. The most annoying performance in the film is given by the usually excellent John C. Reilly, as Henry’s friend Gershon.  We only catch the occasional glimpse of Gershon, who sports a long beard and looks like a scary homeless person. We finally hear him speak an hour into the film, and Reilly uses an unnatural falsetto that sounds like it belongs to a cartoon eunuch.  Reilly talks this way for the rest of the film and after the first two minutes, I placed my hands over my ears whenever Reilly spoke.

Despite the fact that the film takes place now, it has the feel of a much earlier and more innocent time period. As Mary says to Louis, “You remind me of a guy from a different time period, like the twenties.” Louis has romantic ideas about being a gentleman, but the film and the characters never really go anywhere. The road trip that Henry, Louis and Gershon take is annoying and boring, mostly due to Reilly. The film meanders on to the uninteresting end. Even the valiant effort by Kline is not enough to sustain The Extra Man.

The Extra Man. Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.  Katie Holmes (Mary Powell), John C. Reilly (Gershon), Kevin Kline (Henry Harrison), Marian Seldes (Vivian), Patti D’Arbanville (Katherine Hart) and Paul Dano (Louis Ives). Magnolia Pictures, 2010.

Gail sees a movie appears every Wednesday.

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