"Telling Nicholas"
made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, where
many documentaries get their first big break. Classic
documentaries like "Hoop Dreams", "Crumb",
and "When We Were Kings" all played at the Tribeca
Film Festival, so usually the documentaries shown there are
exceptionally well made and thoroughly entertaining.
Alas, "Telling Nicholas" does not live up to the
high standards of Tribeca. And, though it is still
playing in select cities across the country, I saw
"Telling Nicholas" on HBO, where documentaries
always get a fair shake.
This documentary was directed, produced, and edited by James
Ronald Whitney, the man behind the extraordinary 2000
documentary "Just Melvin: Just Evil". Living
only a few yards away from the World Trade Centers, his home
and office building were completely destroyed on September 11.
After walking through ground zero and taking some amazing
footage, Whitney noticed a poster on one of the walls,
featuring a small child and his mother, Nicholas and Michelle
Lanza. The mother is missing. So, two days after
the attack, armed with a video camera, Whitney traveled to the
small town of Tottenfield to interview Michelle Lanza's
family. Upon arriving, he meets her seven-year-old son
Nicholas, her mother and father, her sisters, and a local
minister who was called in to 'tell Nicholas' about what might
have happened to his mother.
This
is a very unbalanced documentary. I'm sure Whitney meant
this film as a stirring tribute to the heroes of 9/11 and I'm
sure his heart was in the right place, but his creative and
artistic vision must have been elsewhere. This could
have been a powerful, unforgettable movie watching experience,
but gets bogged down in issues that shouldn't have been
brought up. The documentary should have focuses on what
the title suggested it would--the little boy who must be told
his mother might possibly be dead. Alas, we get drug
around, meeting other victims of the 9/11 attacks. I
know--their stories are important too, but they belong in a
separate movie. Throughout the film, Whitney shows
pictures of some of his acquaintances who went missing after
the attacks, and he even reflects back on a trip he took to
Afghanistan and Pakistan a few years prior. That's when
I wasn't sure if this was a documentary about the September 11
attacks, or a documentary about the life of James Ronald
Whitney. It was touching, however, to see how the little
boy responded to the crisis, and when the family gathers
around to listen to a voicemail left by Michelle shortly after
the first plane hit, we can see the fear and sorrow gather in
their eyes. They all know that she was probably killed,
but they just can't relinquish hope that she might be
alive--her mother even suggests that she might have amnesia
and be under the name Jane Doe.
This is one of the most cheaply produced documentaries I have
seen in a while, which was surprising when you consider how
well received Whitney's last film was. The low-cost look
of the film doesn't add to the authenticity, but instead takes
away from a piece that should have been given much more
attention that it was. So, "Telling Nicholas"
isn't the astounding documentary of the year--that title would
belong to either "I
Am Trying to Break Your Heart" or "Trembling
Before G-D". Don't watch this
expecting to get a deep sense of patriotism, because that will
never come. Just catch it on HBO sometime and say that
you have seen it. It has a fine purpose, but a mediocre
outcome.
