The Tenants

Infobox Film
name = The Tenants


imdb_id = 0429173
producer = Chris Bongirne
director = Danny Green (director)
writer = David Diamond
Danny Green (director) (adaptation)
Bernard Malamud (novel)
starring = Dylan McDermott
Snoop Dogg
Rose Byrne
music = Leigh Gorman
Coati Mundi
cinematography = David Dubois
editing = Michael J. Duthie
distributor = Millennium Films
released = 3 February 2006
runtime = 91:51 min.
language = English
budget = $2 million

"The Tenants" is a 2006 film drama starring Dylan McDermott and Snoop Dogg. Screened at only one theatre, the film received harsh criticism due to what some critics discerned as anachronistic depictions of the racial tension between the principal characters and a lack of multidimensionality. Consequently, the film was not screened further, being released on DVD directly after its ill-fated theatre release. The film is an adaptation of a novel of the same name that was published in 1971 by author Bernard Malamud.

Twenty-first century audiences may not have related to Malamud's then-contemporary depiction, to which the film adheres. Malamud's depiction is akin to the gritty urban realities depicted in such novels as Richard Wright's Native Son. Accordingly, in remaining faithful to the source material, the film likely does not relate to the broader inclusion, development, and cultural permeation of urban Blacks in modern culture. The film likely failed because --like the novel-- it assumes an appreciation of the Sixties grass-roots revolt by urban Blacks against long-standing intellectual repression of the nascent urban Black intelligentsia.

Plot

The film is very loyal to its source material, depicting the labored and painstakingly slow efforts of main character -- Caucasian, Jewish Harry Lesser -- in drafting what is to be his third novel. Lesser is the remaining tenant of a dilapidated tenement. The landlord -- for reasons not revealed -- cannot or does not evict Lesser, though he periodically offers increasing amounts of money to entice Lesser to move. At some point Lesser becomes aware that another tenant -- an Afro-American squatter named Willie Spearmint -- has taken up residence in the tenement, and that this other tenant is also a writer who has determined to type his book at the tenement as well. The two eventually become acquainted and become embroiled in a deadly conflict over Spearmint's white Jewish girlfriend, Irene.

Principal Actors

Dylan McDermott engulfs the role of Lesser, giving life to the even stereotypical image of the self-torturing literary genius as exacting artist. Snoop Dogg also gives a vibrant life to the role of Spearmint, though some critics may confuse Dogg's hip hop artist persona as overwhelming his characterization of Spearmint. Rather, Dogg's characterization remains loyal to the Malamud novel's character, who is a ghetto version of the self-indulging and self-righteous literary type as exacting artist. Rose Byrne portrays Irene, who is perhaps the most multidimensional, yet accessible character of the dramatization. The character of Lesser serves to juxtapose and highlight the cultural, and even philosophical divide between the established struggling author and the street writer of a burgeoning urban Black intelligentsia. The presence of Snoop Dogg -- who gave a masterful performance -- may have been lost on Twenty-First century audiences, which may have failed to discern the difference between his hip-hop persona and the self-indulgent soul-brother essence of his Sixties Willie Spearmint characterization.

Trivia

In the introduction to the William Burroughs biography Literary Outlaw, Afro-American writer Ralph Waldo Ellison is said to have taken great offense at Malamud, with whom Ellison had been failrly closely associated. Ellison -- who completed only one novel during his lifetime -- had received perhaps mistaken information that the Spearmint character was based on him.

Box office

US Gross Domestic Takings: $2,010 (1 Screen)

External links

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* [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=tenants.htm Box Office Information]
* [http://a.videodetective.com/?PublishedID=29309 "The Tenants" trailer]