Movie Review: Meetings With A Young Poet

By Less Lee Moore

The account of a fictional young poet’s ongoing friendship with one of the world’s most treasured writers could be delightful and illuminating or dreadfully dull. Unfortunately for Meetings With A Young Poet, it’s the latter.

Shifting backwards and forwards in time from 1968 to 1992 and various years in between, Rudy Barichello’s film focuses on Paul Susser, the titular character, and his relationship with poet, playwright, and Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett. Actress Lucia Martell wants to stage a production of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, but as the executor of Beckett’s literary estate, Susser refuses. He’s bitter and she wants to know why, as well as understand something about Beckett the man.

On paper, that actually does seem interesting, but the movie itself is not. Characters quote from famous works of literature at each other (and correct each other) instead of having actual conversations, which comes across as embarrassingly pretentious. It’s like watching Comic Con attendees try to outdo each other at a panel. In the case of Meetings With A Young Poet, there’s also a good chance a majority of the audience isn’t going to have any idea what’s being referenced, which hurts their ability to engage with the characters and the story. It’s also doubtful that Beckett himself would have tolerated such rubbish.

As Susser, Vincent Hoss-Demarais is terribly stilted. His admiration for and friendship with Beckett have destroyed his once promising career but how could someone so boring have anything exciting to write about? He has to wear sunglasses all the time because the light hurts his eyes, which is probably some kind of metaphor, but just makes him look like a jerk. He destroys his electric typewriter in a pique of being cursed by writer’s block in a clichéd scene that wouldn’t be out of place on a bad TV show. The subplot in which Martell (played by the gorgeous, luminous Maria de Madeiros) seduces Susser and reignites his creative urges feels forced and awkward. There is zero sexual chemistry in the love scenes between the two. If you can’t generate an arousing love scene with Maria de Madeiros, your movie is in trouble.

Burdened as he is with Barichello’s portrait of him, it’s a small miracle that Samuel Beckett manages to be as intriguing as he is in Meetings With A Young Poet. This is all thanks to Stephen McHattie’s beautiful portrayal of him, partly taciturn, somewhat devilish, surprisingly warm, and fairly witty. Not only does McHattie physically resemble Beckett, he also manages to successfully navigate the transition from a 63-year-old who’s not ready for the spotlight into an 89-year-old who desperately misses his wife and is ready to shuffle off his mortal coil with dignity.

No doubt die-hard fans of Beckett’s work will appreciate little details and references but for the rest of us, it’s quite a slog. What I would gladly watch is a one-man play of Stephen McHattie as Samuel Beckett talking about his life and career. Too bad this isn’t that.

Meetings With A Young Poet is being distributed through TVA Films. It screens in Toronto at the Famous Players Canada Square from April 18 – 24.