A Pyromaniac's Love Story
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A Pyromaniac's Love Story
Plot
This is an offbeat romantic comedy that's the directorial debut of TV producer Joshua Brand, co-creator of St. Elsewhere (1982-88) and Northern Exposure (1990-95). John Leguizamo stars as Sergio, a Toronto pastry shop worker who faints whenever he sees Hattie (Sadie Frost), a neighborhood girl with whom he is smitten. Hattie, however, wants to see the world and avoids all commitments. Sergio's employer, the kindly Linzer (Armin Mueller-Stahl), wants his shop burned down so that he can use the insurance money to give his wife (Joan Plowright) the lifestyle she deserves, so he offers Sergio $20,000 to torch the store. Sergio refuses but then one night the bakery is burnt to the ground. The real culprit is Garet (William Baldwin), a wealthy pyromaniac with a limp who's madly in love with Stephanie (Erika Eleniak). The slightly unhinged Garet uses the fire as his public declaration of affection. Although innocent, Sergio also claims culpability so that he can use Linzer's payoff to whisk Hattie away. To protect Sergio, however, Linzer confesses to the crime, and to prevent her husband from being jailed, Mrs. Linzer also claims responsibility. With four people confessing, local constable Sgt. Zikowski (Mike Starr) is at a loss. ~ Karl Williams, RoviCast
- William Baldwin - Garet
- John Leguizamo - Sergio
- Sadie Frost - Hattie
- Erika Eleniak - Stephanie
- Michael Lerner - Perry
Credit
Peter Grundy - Art Director, Cathy Sandrich - Casting, Amanda Mackey-Johnson - Casting, Allison Lyon Segan - Co-producer, Barbara Kelly - Co-producer, Bridget Kelly - Costume Designer, Patrice Leung - First Assistant Director, Joshua Brand - Director, David Rosenbloom - Editor, Rachel Portman - Composer (Music Score), Bruce Carwardine - Musical Direction/Supervision, Rachel Portman - Songwriter, Daniel Davis - Production Designer, John Schwartzman - Cinematographer, Mark Gordon - Producer, Morgan Upton - Screenwriter| A Pushkin Trilogy (1986 Film), A Pure Formality (1994 Film) | |
| A Qualsiasi Prezzo (1968 Film), A Queda (1976 Film) |
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A Pyromaniac's Love Story
| A Pyromaniac's Love Story | |
|---|---|
 United States theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Joshua Brand |
| Produced by | Mark Gordon Barbara Kelly Allison Lyon Segan |
| Written by | Morgan Ward |
| Starring | William Baldwin John Leguizamo |
| Music by | Rachel Portman |
| Cinematography | John Schwartzman |
| Editing by | David Rosenbloom |
| Distributed by | Hollywood Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 28 April 1995 (USA) |
| Running time | 94 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $468,240 |
A Pyromaniac's Love Story is a 1995 American romantic comedy film directed by Joshua Brand. The original screenplay is by Morgan Ward. The movie was filmed in Toronto (Canada).
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Contents
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Plot synopsis
Sergio is a Toronto pastry shop assistant who is smitten with Hattie, a mousy girl who works in her father Perry's diner and refuses to consider a relationship with him until he begins to earn a decent living. An opportunity presents itself when Linzer, Sergio's employer, offers him $20,000 to torch the store so he can collect the insurance money and use it to give his wife the lifestyle he feels she deserves. Sergio declines the offer, but one night the bakery is burnt to the ground anyway.
Sergio is offered $25,000 to take the blame by the millionaire father of the real culprit, the mentally unstable Garet, who set the bakery on fire as a public declaration of his love for his society girlfriend Stephanie, whose attraction to Sergio, unbeknownst to her vengeance-seeking beau, is unrequited. Despite his innocence, Sergio claims responsibility for the fire so he can use the money to claim Hattie as his own. Linzer, however, has second thoughts about allowing Sergio to pay for the crime, so he confesses he did it, while his wife insists she set the blaze to prevent her husband from being imprisoned. Sgt. Zikowski is left to determine who of the four claiming guilt is the real perpetrator.
Principal cast
- John Leguizamo as Sergio
- William Baldwin as Garet
- Sadie Frost as Hattie
- Erika Eleniak as Stephanie
- Armin Mueller-Stahl as Linzer
- Joan Plowright as Mrs. Linzer
- Mike Starr as Sgt. Zikowski
- Michael Lerner as Perry
Principal production credits
- Producer ..... Mark Gordon
- Original Music ..... Rachel Portman
- Cinematography ..... John Schwartzman
- Production Design ..... Dan Davis
- Art Direction ..... Peter Grundy
- Set Decoration ..... Jaro Dick
- Costume Design ..... Bridget Kelly
Critical reception
In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden called the film "as cuddlesome as a tombstone in January" and added, "[It] wants to be a zany urban romance on the order of Moonstruck, with a bit of A Midsummer Night's Dream thrown in. But its nearly jokeless screenplay by Morgan Ward is so convoluted with plot twists that the characters barely have time to breathe before the story forces them to adopt a new set of caricatured attitudes."[1]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the film "starts out like a lighthearted charmer, and then it goes on and on and on—circling the same plot idea so doggedly that I began to wonder idly what it might have been like as a short subject. It doesn't have a mean bone in its body or, for that matter, a brain in its head . . . The characters behave like simpletons, breaking up and getting back together again at the convenience of the plot. Director Joshua Brand . . . has the nerve to go for the sort of cheerful whimsy of Moonstruck, Sleepless in Seattle and While You Were Sleeping. But whimsy without wit is like an empty smile."[2]
In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said it "has a fine cast and a director, Joshua Brand, who has a feeling for the tone of the piece. The film's cinematography is crisp and slightly fantastic, and its sound track is sardonic but warm. But the script—ooh, that script. After a charming first few minutes, A Pyromaniac's Love Story becomes relentlessly fey, unbearably picaresque and sadistically lyric. Morgan Ward's screenplay is like an inept attempt at a Giraudoux play or a John Patrick Shanley script. But without the passion behind it—or the flair for heightened language—the thing is a 100-minute nose-dive."[3]
Joe Leydon of Variety called the film "a quirky little gem" and "a modern-day fairy tale with a bemused appreciation of romantic love, blazing passions and other human follies."[4]
In the San Francisco Examiner, Gary Kamiya observed, "It would take more than a can of lighter fluid to ignite this soggy film. A Pyromaniac's Love Story aspires to being an offbeat comedy, somewhere between a fairy tale and a whimsical love story. What it is an irritatingly smarmy, implausible mess. A kind of slow-motion farce that ill-advisedly attempts to mingle wildly disparate realities and acting styles, [it] might have worked had its various plot strands been ingeniously interwoven. But no P.G. Wodehouse or Georges Feydeau is anywhere in sight . . . This film slips between arch cutesiness and semi-seriousness with no discernible pattern or purpose." [5]
References
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