The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers [DVD] [2004]

Geoffrey Rush is phenomenal as Sellers; and I especially like the scenes when he becomes his mother, as well as Blake Edwards. Rush is made to look somewhat like Sellers, but it is the body language and the verbal inflection that makes this portrayal so convincing.
Others in the cast are also excellent: Miriam Margoyles as his mother, Emily Watson as wife # 1, Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland, Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Fry amusing as celebrity psychic Maurice Woodruff, and the very underrated John Lithgow once again terrific as Blake Edwards. Sonia Aquino is impressive in the small part of Sophia Loren.

The direction by Stephen Hopkins is stylish and well-paced, and the score by Richard Hartley is peppered with Tom Jones singing "It's Not Unusual", and other songs that fit into the timeline from The Animals, The Kinks, and more.
A way above average Cable TV production, it's a riveting look at a great talent gone wrong, and a "must see" for Rush's performance alone. Total running time is 122 minutes.

I wonder how many viewers of this dazzlingly stylish film will bother to watch it with the audio commentary by Geoffrey Rush and director Hopkins, wherein they clearly admit that several of these “incidents” never actually occurred, but were done for artistic convenience, for example, to try to convey years of tension and tribulations in a moment’s time, as is the case in a scene where Sellers supposedly bashes Blake Edwards at a latter-day Panther premiere. Similarly, I have read Michael Sellers’ comments (his son) following the release of the film, and he stated that the bathroom/pill scene never happened.

I am not suggesting that Sellers was not a tremendously complicated, sometimes troubled, frequently difficult person. But the version of Sellers that is brought to life like a chimera here is not one that was arrived at with a sense of compassion, balance and realism. Imagine if your own life story were being told—and at every juncture, in every situation, you were depicted in the absolute worst light. Every negative magnified and every positive minimized. Such is the nature of the book upon which this movie is based. We all have moments and characteristics we aren’t proud of, but they do not define the totality of us as people. Peter Sellers’ totality was an incredibly complex one.

I have to give more weight to The Peter Sellers Story—As He Filmed It, a BBC Arena documentary (see dvd listing) which undoubtedly influenced the making of this film at least in concert with Roger Lewis’ snipey book. Surely Rush and Hopkins had access to the same bank of Sellers’ home movies in arriving at this skewed, if brilliant version, there can be no doubt. To me, the most poignant testimonial to Peter is from that documentary, the very first we hear, from Anne (Sellers) Levy, his first wife, who states: “I would think I probably laughed more with him than anybody I’ve known in my life…probably cried more, too.”

Despite the Sellers that is incarnated in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, I would still pay the price of admission to have shared the laughter of Richard Henry Sellers.

Evaluating this movie as a piece of artistry within the film genre, I greatly admire the performances, particularly of Geoffrey Rush, who somehow does evoke the spirit of Sellers. In terms of capturing the flavor and energy of the Sixties, the film is spot-on.

But if you come away from this wanting to dismiss Sellers as trivial and self-indulgent, you will miss out on a very uniquely gifted man. Go watch Dr. Strangelove, Hoffman, The Optimists, Being There. If you believe there is nothing at the core of this man, as an actor, he will truly have duped you.