Jimmy review – simple-minded James Stewart biopic is too straightforward

Riverdale’s KJ Apa gives surprisingly solid performance but this corny look at iconic actor’s life is missed opportunity The last time New Zealand actor KJ Apa took on a midcentury American pop-cultural icon, he was playing a nominally sexy yet often weirdly bloodless version of

Riverdale’s KJ Apa gives surprisingly solid performance but this corny look at iconic actor’s life is missed opportunity The last time New Zealand actor KJ Apa took on a midcentury American pop-cultural icon, he was playing a nominally sexy yet often weirdly bloodless version of Archie Andrews, the feckless teen next door on the comic-book riff Riverdale. He also frequently ceded scenes to his scene partners, whether former teen idols like Luke Perry or newer, more dynamic personalities like Camila Mendes or Madelaine Petsch. Now he’s taking on an even more beloved and therefore trickier part: James Stewart, the Pennsylvania-accented avatar of decency who starred in dozens of classic films and spent decades as a box office mainstay.

Yes, Archie has been promoted to a Jimmy Stewart biopic. The movie, called just plain Jimmy, focuses on Stewart’s willing military service during the second world war and its immediate aftermath. Here, Apa is in far less danger of being outshined by his co-stars; it’s competing memories of the real Stewart, available through so many great, good, and watchable-because-of-him movies, that he has to worry about.

The substantial and perhaps only surprise that Jimmy has up its sleeve is that Apa does a reasonable imitation of one of the most immediately distinctive movie stars of all time. Plenty of people can approximate that famous voice, less clipped and urbane than so many of his costars, but Apa gets some of his gangly physicality, too. In scenes of distress (whether real-life or acted out on a movie set), he captures the way Stewart could look and sound as if he was about to topple over with overflowing emotion when he got himself worked up for a big scene.

It’s not a note-perfect recreation, or even a particularly surprising one, but Apa does disappear into it. Continue reading...