Mr. Jones

As directed by the Briton Mike Figgis ("Stormy Monday"), "Mr. Jones" is a muscular sort of movie, imposing action on characters who are feeling much but actually doing very little. Figgis' constant camera cuts are almost as animated, as jazzy, as Jones' highs. The director shows a daring sense of rhythm in his edits and, for this story, anyway, it works. [8 Oct 1993, p.D]

What is remarkable about "Mr. Jones" is how clearly it communicates his feelings. We begin to understand why manic-depression is sometimes described as the only mental illness its victims enjoy - on the up days, anyway. Read full review

when Mr. Jones is working, it's surprisingly enjoyable, partly because the cast is so entertaining. [9 Oct 1993] Read full review

After years of watching Hollywood portray mentally disturbed people as either psychopaths or cuddly idiots, it's refreshing to see what Figgis and screenwriters Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer have done with Mr. Jones. Some of the old cliches rise up now and then - beginning with the casting of heroic Richard Gere in the title role - but Mr. Jones mostly maintains respect for its audience and its subject. [8 Oct 1993, p.7]

"Mr. Jones" does have some things to savor. Director Mike Figgis, who made "Stormy Monday" and "Internal Affairs," has a distinctive, atmospheric touch. There's something memorably restless about Gere's performance. He never stops. Olin gives her white-uniformed, statistics-spouting, let's-work-together role an off-center appeal. And there are likable supporting performances from Delroy Lindo, as a construction worker who befriends Gere; Lauren Tom, a hauntingly beautiful but distraught mental patient; and Lisa Malkiewicz, as a bank teller who giddily falls for Gere when he effortlessly calculates accrued interest on his account. But these worthy elements can't completely disguise the conventional medicine we're ultimately being asked to swallow. Read full review

A haunting glimpse into the horrors of mental illness as well as the harsh world of mental-health care, "Mr. Jones" is, unfortunately, sugarcoated with a glossy doctor-patient love story that diminishes its emotional strengths. [6 Oct 1993]

Director Mike Figgis (''Internal Affairs'') adorns ''Mr. Jones'' with some unconventional touches, abrupt fade-outs that give a touch of poetry to the endings of scenes -- and keeps the audience believing that ''Mr. Jones'' is a class act long after it's obvious it's not. [8 Oct 1993, p.C3]

Hollywood has made, over the years, some pretty silly films about mental illness, but "Mr. Jones" - the story of a romance between a deeply disturbed patient and his psychiatrist - surely ranks with the looniest. [12 Oct 1993, p.E8]

See Mr. Jones at your own risk. Those who enjoy excruciatingly manipulative melodrama will probably come out of this movie spouting words of praise. Those who don't find fulfillment in that sort of "experience" would do better looking someplace where the first name of the title character is revealed. Read full review

A high-energy performance by Richard Gere and an intensely brooding one from Lena Olin engage attentive viewer interest, but the stars are forced to overcompensate for a rather slow pace and lack of plot. Read full review

The filmmakers are so driven to show us Mr. Jones as a harrowing free spirit that they don’t put much faith in his redemption. They’re as hooked on Jones the high-flyer as Libbie is. Read full review

But the screenplay, by Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer, can sound pat enough to diminish the characters. Read full review

Another chapter in the ongoing struggle between the talented Mike Figgis (Stormy Monday, Internal Affairs, Liebestraum) and studio recutters and reshooters, this intriguing but unsatisfying love story between a manic-depressive (Richard Gere at his best) and his sympathetic therapist (Lena Olin) makes memorable uses of both its west-coast settings and its cast (which also includes Anne Bancroft), but, like Liebestraum, it seems to come to us with several parts missing. Read full review

In short, a little too spongy for high- quality junk food. Read full review

SOMEWHERE in the muddle that is Mr. Jones, there's a good movie trying to get out. And somewhere in the actor that is Richard Gere, there's a good performance hatching a similar escape. But, all tied up by an erratic script, spotty direction and a Hollywood ending, neither makes it, leaving us with the cinematic equivalent of the high-school underachiever - loads of potential, none of it realized. [9 Oct 1993]

Gere is excellent as this disturbed fellow; his twitches and too-happy smile are right on the money, but this only serves to illuminate the ramshackle state of the rest of the film, which is a shame: good, honest films dealing with mental illness are exceedingly few and far between. This, however, is not one of them. Read full review

The film pretends to be seriously concerned about the intersection of madness and identity, but never explores who these people really are. Instead of showing two people developing genuine intimacy through tenderness and slow, hard-won honesty, we see hysterical behavior generating hysterical responses. This is less psychodrama than Harlequin romance. Read full review

Figgis, reunited with Gere after Internal Affairs, went through the Hollywood mangle on this one, and despite flashes of insight, anything worthwhile gets lost in a script that strains too hard for truth and provokes unfortunate big laughs. Read full review

In its present state, the film veers unsteadily between overblown romance and a portrait of a disturbed and pained man as a wacky guy who's fun to be with. Small wonder that the director has disowned the release version. Read full review

No matter how hard Richard Gere huffs and puffs, his performance as the hunky manic-depressive known only as "Mr. Jones" won't blow you away. Bouncing foolishly from super-duper euphoria to catatonia and back, Gere expends too much energy to ever be believable. [8 Oct 1993, p.56]

Unfortunately, the script is so hopelessly superficial that very little of this registers. It's the work of Eric Roth, who wrote the unspeakable Billy Crystal comedy, "Memories of Me," and Michael Cristofer, a playwright whose most prominent previous screen credit was the disastrous "Bonfire of the Vanities." Read full review

It's a film that's two hours of maudlin, heavy-handed overwrought silliness. Think of "Prince of Tides" meets "Benny & Joon," with less entertainment value. [5 Oct 1993]

Director Mike Figgis waited about an hour and 48 minutes too long to decide to make this a comedy. [8 Oct 1993, p.3E]

Mr. Jones is an even bigger disappointment when you consider it's directed by Mike Figgis (Internal Affairs, Liebestraum), who has shown talent for off-kilter thrillers. Saddled with a routine and unimaginative script here, he indulges in well-worn cliches, including setting his big scene between Gere and Olin against a thunderstorm (which inadvertently drowns out part of Olin's dialogue). [9 Oct 1993, p.G4]