Mona Lisa

Looking a bit like a cross between a loyal bulldog and Danny DeVito, Bob Hoskins has always been a somewhat unlikely star. He isn't particularly funny, nor is he known for an exceptional range as an actor... I guess if you had to categorise him on the grand scale of acting you'd put him somewhere between Michael Caine and Joe Pesci. Prior to Mona Lisa, Hoskins had played a variety of character and bit-parts in British film and television throughout the 1970s and 80s. He got his first big break with the memorably ruthless lead role in the unvarnished British gangster classic The Long Good Friday, but it wasn't until his work in Mona Lisa that he made his real mark on international audiences. Mona Lisa is also important for it's impact on the career of Irish director Neil Jordan, who would go on to explore similar themes in The Crying Game and become one of the UK's most underrated auteurs.

Hoskins plays George, a likely lad who gets out of prison after seven years to find that his world has moved on without him. He has a daughter who doesn't really know him, and a wife who doesn't want to know him. He shacks up with his good friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) and falls into work as a driver for a high class prostitute named Simone (Cathy Tyson). He also tries to chase up his former employer, Mortwell (Michael Caine), in the hope of getting some kind of compensation for the time he just did in gaol. As he gets to know Simone better he finds himself drawn into a world of sordid exploitation that he would rather not be a part of, though he is also unable to leave due to the feelings he develops for her.

At first Mona Lisa feels like a romance story re-imagined for the seedy London underworld of dodgy deals, peepshows, pimps and streetwalkers. George and Simone initiually have a bristly relationship due to their apparent class differences. George is a bit rough around the edges, he's cheap, and he knows it, but he's also a good man underneath. He's disgusted by underage prostitutes, he reads books and drinks cups of tea with a religious-like relish, and is unexpectedly naive due to his time away from the London underworld. Simone on the other hand is dignified and mysterious, George even says, "You aint no night nurse, let's say you're... a lady", as her occupation seems to encourage higher airs. Together they're an awkward match, but it doesn't take long for Simone to recognise the goodness in George, nor for George to "like her... like in the songs". But then the film becomes something else entirely - a story of lost girls exploited by greedy men and a journey into a whole other level of prostitution involving some pretty dark practices. Mona Lisa is a lot more than just a romance or a gangster film, it bends and combines genres to take the audience into unknown territory.

The title of the film refers to the character of Simone and what she comes to represent for George... she's like the painting's enigmatic smile, and with this the film comes to be an unconventional modern film noir of sorts. Neil Jordan disguises the tropes of the genre with the depressing grey reality of 1980s London, and also subverts the genre by breaking a few boundaries as far as heroes and their love interests go. It also helps that all the principle cast members put in some really alive performances. Caine is memorable in a relatively small role as the dodgy kingpin Mortwell - he's slippery, self-assured, immoral, ambitious and thoroughly charmless. Tyson is also excellent as Simone, bringing a convincing and sympathetic mix of strength and vulnerability to her role without shortchanging the script's intentions. I don't know what became of her after this role or why she isn't more well-known, a quick look at imdb.com reveals a fairly unimpressive list of British television credits, which is a shame. The real star of the movie is undoubtedly Hoskins, he puts a realistic and flawed hero on the screen and doesn't pull any punches for the sake of his ego as an actor. George is a fascinating supporting character put into the spotlight and made three-dimensional, and it's easy to see why Hoskins got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this film. You really come to cheer for him despite the baser aspects of his character.

DIRECTOR: Neil Jordan
WRITER/SOURCE: Neil Jordan and David Leland
KEY ACTORS: Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Caine, Clarke Peters, Kate Hardie

RELATED TEXTS:
- Neil Jordan would continue and expand on similar themes whilst exploring the film noir genre in The Crying Game, made eight years later.
- The Long Good Friday features Bob Hoskins in a similar London landscape, albeit less sympathetically.
- George's journey into the unsavoury underbelly of London to find the underage prostitute Cathy echoes the relationship between Travis and Iris in Taxi Driver.
- Also worth checking out is the taboo-breaking modern film noir Angel Heart, directed by British filmmaker Alan Parker (whose style and filmography bares some similarity to Neil Jordan's).

AWARDS:
Bob Hoskins was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

Mona Lisa was nominated for six BAFTAs... Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Actress (Cathy Tyson) and Best Actor (Hoskins). Only Hoskins won.

Hoskins was also nominated for a range of awards at other film festivals, a few of which he won (the most notable being the Cannes Film Festival).