The Silence of the Lambs

Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is so iconic through parody and imitation that it's impossible to regard it fresh. It provided a tremendous critical and box office success, greeted like The Godfather and Jaws two decades prior: a pulp novel transmogrified into high art. Its influence proved pervasive, from lurid thrillers like Se7en through a slew of TV shows (The X-Files, Criminal Minds). Nonetheless, I found Lambs rather uneven, unsure if it's a gritty procedural or a Gothic horror pic.

FBI Agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) gets assigned by boss Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to interview Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a psychologist-serial killer serving a life sentence. Their initial meetings go nowhere, but Hannibal hints he may have a connection with another killer. The FBI's tracking Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), a murderous transvestite who gets his jollies skinning women alive; he kidnaps the daughter of a US Senator, drawing intense media focus. Hannibal draws Clarice ever closer with tantalizing hints and penetrating insight, always eying his own dramatic exit.

The Silence of the Lambs mostly succeeds as a high-toned thriller. Viewers expecting a warped gore fest will be surprised by Demme's restrained presentation: even a gruesome autopsy remains mostly off-screen. Rather than an absurd body count, Demme focuses on sinister atmospherics and character drama throughout: Clarice's struggles with FBI bureaucracy occupy as much time as Buffalo Bill's deprivations. Story elements strain credulity (how's Hannibal powerful enough to parlay with a Senator?) but Lambs scores with its well-crafted cat and mouse game.

It's Jodie Foster, though, who makes Lambs work. Clarice Starling transcends pretty much any female cop in movie history. Clarice is well-rounded enough to take seriously; her femininity isn't always an asset, but Clarice plays it to her advantage in disarming superiors. Her inexperience proves a bigger hurdle, as in her sloppy confrontation with Buffalo Bill. Foster gives an intelligent turn, subsuming deep-seated anguish within a smart, capable FBI agent.

But Demme and writer Ted Tally can't fully cast off Thomas Harris's overwrought source novel. The scene where police discover the gory aftermath of Hannibal's escape makes an arresting image, yet it's rather out of place after the grounded build-up. If Buffalo Bill's disturbingly credible, Hannibal is the sort of Renaissance monster who exists only in movies: smart, cultured, a psychologist who makes Robbie Coltrane's Fitz look like a novice, yet a killer with superhuman strength. When Hannibal eludes capture by wearing a victim's face, we've slipped into Texas Chainsaw territory.

And here's where I'll part ways with most viewers. Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter, whose iconic villain status extends to two sequels. Yet frankly, I found Hannibal the Cannibal tiresome. Hopkins, brilliant in shows like The Bounty, The Remains of the Day and Nixon, indulges in endless hammy affectations: a sinister hiss, a strange affected drawl, leering and beaming monstrously. This ridiculous caricature weighs against the film's docudrama pretensions, especially when Hannibal's very involvement seems contrived.

The Silence of the Lambs is entertaining but hardly the masterpiece it's made out to be. Readers are welcome to dispute my dislike for Hopkins, but he's emblematic of the film's failing: It's part clinical thriller, part sanguinary cartoon.