The entry begins:
There’s no costume nor any amount of make-up to transform Ricky Gervais into an attractive forty-three year old woman, but he’d be pitch perfect in the role of Bunny. While many fine actresses could be entirely convincingly as a clinically depressed woman—Keira Knightly was amazing as the severely mentally Sabine Spielrein in A Most Dangerous Method —but Bunny is not only deeply depressed. She is acerbic, anti-socially honest, and she has deep compassion for all animals and oppressed people. As Gervais does in his stand-up routines, and when he hosted the Oscars, Bunny wields her wit like a machete. She is wincingly funny. This willingness to speak truth as she sees it coupled with her anguished vulnerability results in comic excruciation; a state of being of which Ricky Gervais is the master. When my husband and I binge-watched The Office we laughed ourselves sick but by the end, I was weeping. I asked my husband, “Why am I crying?”Learn more about the book and author at Binnie Kirshenbaum's website.
“How could you not be crying?” he said. “This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Gervais’s character could not conceal his desperation to be loved by everyone; a desperation that thwarted any chance of fulfilling that need. Bunny’s desperation is better concealed, but the bottom line is the same. He wants to be loved. She wants to be special. His attempts to mask his humiliation fail, as do Bunny’s efforts to bury her shame.
For the obvious reasons, Gervais will...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: The Scenic Route.
My Book, The Movie: Rabbits for Food.
--Marshal Zeringue
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