On the canceled actor’s new feature film and struggle to secure an acting comeback.
On the canceled actor’s new feature film and struggle to secure an acting comeback
K evin Spacey is back with a movie. If you missed it, you’re not the only one.
Director Michael Zaiko Hall’s Peter Five Eight is a dark comedy/thriller about a young woman who moves to a small town to hide from her secret past. Released in March, it is now available on streaming services. It marks Spacey’s first lead role in an American movie in seven years, since allegations of sexual misconduct derailed his career.
As I detailed earlier, Spacey was cleared of all criminal charges in a U.K. court and in a civil case in New York. But in the court of public opinion, the jury is still out.
Peter Five Eight has been virtually ignored by critics. In part, it was overshadowed by the announcement of the new documentary Spacey Unmasked, which is based on interviews from ten men (none of them involved in the criminal trials) who claim Spacey made unwanted sexual advances toward them.
Some stars have stood by Spacey. During the criminal trial, Elton John testified for the defense. Afterward, Liam Neeson called him a “good man and a man of character.” Sharon Stone said he is “generous to a fault and knows more about our craft than most of us ever will.”
Jet Jandreau, Spacey’s Peter Five Eight co-star, whom I spoke with last week, says she doesn’t intend to watch the documentary since Spacey “was vindicated of all the charges and he was found not guilty, both in the U.S. and the U.K.”
“I got to have several conversations with Kevin before making the movie,” Jandreau told me over Zoom. “I got to talk to his management and my mind was put at ease. It became clear to me that a lot of what was said about Kevin was blown out of proportion.”
Peter Five Eight tells the story of Sam (Jandreau), a glamorous real-estate agent with a deadbeat husband (Michael Emery), whose dark past catches up with her. The title is a reference to the Bible verse Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” In the movie, Sam’s adversary is Peter (Spacey), a hit man employed by an aggrieved billionaire to enact revenge on Sam for her past sins.
The movie was styled after a 1940s B-movie. Jandreau describes it as “a modern-day film noir” that has a “classic old Hollywood feel to it.” Spacey first emerges on-screen in a fedora, lighting a cigarette, then slowly turning toward the camera as dramatic music plays. The dialogue is similarly stylized and theatrical.
The reason Peter wasn’t set in the Forties was mostly practical: It would have required a much bigger budget. If it weren’t for his cancellation, Spacey would very likely never have been in this film. At the height of his career, the actor’s net worth was more than $75 million.
You can hardly blame Jandreau, 26, for her excitement, then, in getting to co-star with an actor who, pre-scandal, was considered “one of the greatest.”
What is the movie like? Peter Five Eight is entertaining, if silly. The scenes of marital tension tend to drag, as does Sam’s “tortured soul” flashbacks and drinking sequences. Still, there are some genuinely funny moments. For instance, Sam’s altercation with her colleague Willoughby (Dale Dobson) when he calls out her drinking problem, or the scene where the eccentric neighbor, Marlene (Elizabeth Harnett), interferes with Sam’s sale to an overly “materialistic” couple. The finale’s dramatic sequence is well executed, though the audience is left with some questions. (Spoiler alert: How did Sam’s friend Brenda, played by Rebecca De Mornay, in saving the day, know where to find them? What’s behind the deadbeat husband’s sudden transformation into an upstanding churchgoer?)
Jandreau tells me that, with Spacey on board, the cast and crew anticipated a media “firestorm.” But that firestorm turned out to be barely a lit match.
“We had a great premiere and the next day we were, you know, expecting all these — the press to cover it, and there was total blackout,” Jandreau says. “I think the Daily Mail covered it, and then it was just dead silent everywhere else. So that really brought home to us that it’s going to be an uphill battle.”
Though there was a review in Rolling Stone, it was less a review than an excuse to attack Spacey. The reviewer, Miles Klee, claimed the actor was “a bit rusty when it comes to commanding the frame, sluggish in his attempts at intimidation.” In fairness, the sluggishness was in character. Peter says to himself, while aiming at a target: “I’ve had him in my sight six times and missed. You still up to this, old man?”
Klee also criticizes Jandreau’s performance as “cartoonish,” “shrill and hysterical.” Again, Klee may have missed the irony. Which explains why Jandreau feels defensive: “This melodramatic style and that tone might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that that was our intention,” she tells me.
After Spacey “slums it in another two or three of these low-budget affairs,” writes Klee, “bigger producers and directors may decide it’s safe to hire him again.” In time, Spacey’s attempt at an acting comeback will prove an interesting test case in whether those canceled for Me Too violations can be rehabilitated.
Jandreau says that it “made sense” to cast Spacey as the villain in Peter Five Eight, and that it wouldn’t make sense to cast him as “a saint.” In film, if not in life, there are worse things than being typecast as the villain.