MOVIE REVIEW : Johnson, Griffith Find Idyllic Roles in ‘Paradise’

Yes, Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith do co-star in “Paradise” (AMC Century 14), but hold the hauteur, it’s not in a way anyone could have predicted. The erstwhile Mr. Attitude, the coolest cop in Miami, and his off-screen wife, the sensual Something Wild queen, have come together in an updated Disney family film, for gosh sakes. More surprising still, they turn in a pair of exceptionally effective and restrained ensemble performances. Go figure.

Directed by first-timer Mary Agnes Donoghue, who also adapted the script from the French film “Le Grand Chemin,” Johnson and Griffith will surprise even their advocates with the realistic and (yes) sensitive performances they give as Ben and Lily Reed, a troubled couple grappling with an unspoken pain that is tearing their marriage apart. That is the good news. The rest of the story is that the rest of the film, though put together with welcome naturalness, can’t quite manage to be as honest or compelling as its stars.

“Paradise’s” protagonist is not Ben or Lily but 10-year-old Willard Young (Elijah Wood). A lonely scholarship student at a prestigious prep school, tormented by neighborhood toughs, Willard is sent off by his pregnant mother to spend his summer vacation with her oldest friend Lily in the small Southern hamlet of Paradise.

A very solemn, wary little boy, self-possessed enough to be a Supreme Court nominee, Willard is understandably uneasy about spending the summer with strangers. Making the transition easier for him is the presence next door to Lily and Ben of 9-year-old Billie Pike (Thora Birch), a feistily adorable pixie who has more than enough self-assurance to go around.

Fortunately, only half of Willard’s summer is spent in Tom Sawyerish bliss with Billie. He also has to deal with his nominal hosts, the Reeds, who, with an unexamined trauma in their recent past, specialize in making life miserable for each other and occasionally for him.

On first glance, it is Ben Reed who is most adept at broadcasting a deep, barely controlled anger. As played with careful power by Johnson, who uses his confident masculinity to great and unexpected effect, Ben exudes a quietly seething, glowering fury, all-encompassing enough to include Willard, his wife, even himself.

But as “Paradise” (rated PG-13) unfolds under Donoghue’s thankfully unforced direction, it becomes clear that Lily’s anguish, though less obvious, is deeper and more troublesome than Ben’s. Griffith, who is usually called on to animate some of the screen’s brassiest creations, totally cuts her engines here, turning in a pared-down performance whose emotional impact proves all the greater for being initially camouflaged by the softest of surfaces.

Though director Donoghue is often undercut by the cloyingly sentimental music of David Newman, she is at her best in directing the interaction of Johnson and Griffith between each other and with Elijah Wood. Like Randa Haines in “The Doctor,” she places a premium on emotional honesty within a scene, and the results speak for themselves. Even if they make a dozen films together, it is doubtful that Johnson and Griffith will ever have as flattering a showcase for their complementary acting styles as “Paradise” provides.

Unfortunately, the rest of “Paradise” is not as involving as Ben and Lily’s story. Willard’s coming of age, the friendship between Willard and Billy, the problems of Billy’s classically ditzy mother, the trumped-up jeopardy that rears its inevitable head at the close, all slip too easily into obviously commercial patterns. A more rigorous sensibility throughout would have added a welcome burnish to the glow this film’s stars provide.

‘Paradise’

Melanie Griffith: Lily Reed

Don Johnson: Ben Reed

Elijah Wood: Willard Young

Thora Birch: Billie Pike

Sheila McCarthy: Sally Pike

Touchstone Pictures in association with Touchwood Pacific Partners I presentation of a Jean Francois Lepetit/Interscope Communications production, released by Buena Vista. Director Mary Agnes Donoghue. Producers Scott Kroopf and Patrick Palmer. Executive producers Jean Francois Lepetit, Ted Field and Robert W. Cort. Screenplay by Mary Agnes Donoghue. Cinematographer Jerzy Zielinski. Editor Eva Gardos, Debra McDermott. Costumes Linda Palermo Donahue. Music David Newman. Production design Evelyn Sakash and Marcia Hinds. Set Decorator Donna J. Hattin. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13