Much more often than not, film festival opening-night features - in Seattle and elsewhere - are colossal stinkeroos. So mark the 35th edition of Seattle's fest already ahead on points. "In the Loop," selected to beguile the chichi crowd at the Paramount Theatre this Thursday evening, is one zany, rapier-sharp, rib-crushingly funny movie about that possibly most absurd and foredoomed field of endeavor: international diplomacy.
Specifically, though by no means literally, Armando Iannucci's big-screen version of the honored BBC satire "The Thick of It" takes its inspiration from the U.S.-U.K., Bush-Blair run-up to the Iraq war. Nothing about 9/11 or WMD, mind you. A great deal, however, about whether a certain midlevel British official trying to slip discreetly out of a press conference said that the possibility of war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable" ... and what "unforeseeable" might mean ... or not mean ... and whether he was authorized to say it. In fact, after grave consideration, it will be formally insisted that "he did not say 'unforeseeable.' You may have heard it, but he didn't say it."
As someone will have occasion to note a few reels later, "We are in a new reality here," and unreality is how we got that way. The writing is line-for-line brilliant and the cast impeccable in their impersonations, again not of specific figures at 10 Downing Street and the Pentagon, but their archetypal essence as players of the great game. Tom Hollander nails down the role of Simon Foster, whose comparatively levelheaded stewardship carries him down truly unforeseeable byways on both sides of the Atlantic. Peter Capaldi (held in fond memory as the mermaid-besotted assistant in "Local Hero" two-and-a-half decades ago) sustains a hilariously obscene, virtually film-long rant as the Brit (but really Scottish) communications chief, while Gina McKee mutters deliciously under her breath as the patient underling who's seen it all. James Gandolfini, Mimi Kennedy, Anna Chlumsky and David Rasche uphold American honor as their D.C. counterparts.
So far, so very good (though visually the film resembles something shot for YouTube - but then, so many films these days do). And thanks to Seattle International Film Festival advance screenings, as well as a week profitably spent at last fall's Toronto festivities, I can point toward some other beauties on tap: the three studies of family life praised elsewhere in this section by Kathleen Murphy; "The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow's best film in two decades and the surprise critical hit at Toronto; Barbet Schroeder's luscious descent into Oriental tale-spinning "Inju, the Beast in the Shadow"; and - perhaps the happiest discovery, because so unexpected - the witty, sweet, anything-but-sappy romantic comedy "(500) Days of Summer," costarring the gifted young actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the never-more-winning Zooey Deschanel.
SIFF is the nation's biggest film festival, with 199 feature films (or is it 268?) playing in more than a dozen venues in town and on the Eastside between May 21 and June 14. Some people take the month off work to attend, but the most diehard Visine-squirter can't see everything, and some of what you see will frustrate and disappoint. But probably not leave you cold - not too often, anyway. The idea is to take chances, open your eyes to new possibilities, new countries. Everything, what works and what doesn't, gives you perspective.
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