Sylvia (Charlize Theron), a restaurant manager, is stuck in a loop of self-loathing, alternately throwing herself at men and attempting to ensure no man will ever want her. Gina (Kim Bassinger), married with three kids, is having an affair. Following a tragic accident, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) Gina’s daughter, begins a relationship with Santiago (J.D. Pardo), the son of the man with whom her mother was cheating. As the years pass, another accident will bring the lives of these women together.

CRITIQUE

It must be hard being a one-trick pony. Just ask M. Night Shyamalan. Throw a couple of twists into your movies and suddenly everybody is trying to stay one step ahead of you, anticipating a twist and hoping to spot it early. And when spotting the twist becomes incredibly easy (one look at the trailers for The Village and you could tell what was coming), people stop caring.

Guillermo Arriaga is a one-trick pony. His scripts for Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel revolved around multi-narrative, nonlinear stories; each focused on plotlines that seemed disparate at first glance but eventually came together in the third act.

The Burning Plain, which marks Arriaga’s directorial debut, follows the same template, only with much less successful results. (And given that I wasn’t terribly impressed by the results of those other three movies, you can probably guess how exactly how I feel about this one.) It looks like his bag of tricks (which wasn’t all that deep to begin with) is now completely empty. 

Arriaga continually toys with the same themes, and that’s gotten a bit old over the past decade. He has nothing new to say, and he keeps saying this nothing new in the same way. He’s fixated on one idea and one way of presenting it. Unlike Kubrick, Scorsese, Kathryn Bigelow, or Christopher Nolan, who have been able to find different vehicles for their obsessions, Arriaga simply repeats himself. Aside from a change in scenery, there’s really nothing to distinguish this movie from any of his previous works. It’s just as slow, ponderous, self-important, and pretentious, with a payoff that isn’t half as meaningful as he obviously (and foolishly) believes.

Although he attempts to hide the connection between the various plotlines until late in the second act (primarily by not revealing the name of one character, which is a pretty big sign something is up), it’s painfully clear early on what this connection is. And for anyone who makes it early on, sitting through the rest of the movie is a chore, as the pacing here is akin to that of a slug that has just moved through a pile of salt: excruciatingly slow and not exactly pleasant to watch.

The list of things I would rather do than slog through this sort of slow-moving catalog of human misery (imagine watching Magnolia with your player stuck on slow-mo and you’ll have an idea of what I mean) is longer than the list of illicit substances you’ll find in Tom Sizemore’s system at any given time. Hell, listening to a rundown of those substances would likely be a more rewarding experience. Lord knows it couldn’t possibly be any less rewarding.

There is some fun to be had in watching Arriaga go out of his way to make the story as complexly miserable as he can. It’s all so artificial and transparently contrived that I found myself wondering where he’d push it next. It’s almost as if he created a checklist of woes to inflict on these characters (boils, bloodred rivers, and locust are about the only things missing), and it didn’t matter how crazy things had to get in order for him to be able to check all of them off, he was going to do it, damn it!

And do it he does, resulting in a jumble of unresolved subplots, disappearing characters, and a climax so trite it probably wouldn’t cut it in a Hallmark Channel flick. Arriaga can spin it any way he wants, but The Burning Plain is really nothing more than an overcooked soap opera. It’s just as vacuous and ridiculous, but doesn’t have the good sense to admit it.

THE VIDEO

Arriaga got one thing right here: he hired Robert Elswit and John Toll to shoot the movie. Toll began the project but left at some point to fulfill another obligation (and was unceremoniously stuck with an “Additional Photography” credit), at which time Elswit took over; it’s unclear exactly who shot what, but the result is seamless.

It’s also just as good as you’d expect it to be, and this release’s 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with VC-1 onto a 25GB disc--offers a very good representation. Theron’s side of the story is intentionally subdued and slightly soft, with a color scheme that is dominated by blues and grays; Bassinger’s end is sunny and brightly lit, with a palette that boasts strong primaries and excellent clarity and detail.

THE AUDIO

The only audio option is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Not surprisingly, the movie’s sound design favors the front channels. Surround action consists of some score bleed and a few discrete effects, which are handled with far more care and finesse than I was expecting. Dialogue is well prioritized and always intelligible, even when delivered in the obligatory hushed tones. The low end rarely comes into play. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The Making of The Burning Plain (43 minutes, SD) is a lengthy behind-the-scenes piece that consists largely of talking-head footage of Arriaga (who obviously enjoys hearing himself talk almost as much as Tarantino does) discussing the movie’s themes and inspiration.

The Music of The Burning Plain (15 minutes, SD) combines comments from composers Hans Zimmer and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez with footage from the scoring sessions.  

HDNet: A Look at The Burning Plain (5 minutes, HD) is a spoiler-filled promo piece (essentially an extended commercial) for the movie.

FINAL THOUGHT

The emperor has no clothes; neither does Arriaga.